I think that you are confusing my argument with another one. I'm not in the "ls should only list files" camp. I'm merely questioning the idea that it isn't orie

I think that you are confusing my argument with another one. I'm not in the "ls should only list files" camp. I'm merely questioning the idea that it isn't oriented towards composability on the basis that even the more featureful implementations revert to a simple filename-newline format that's perfect for stream editing or grepping when their output isn't a TTY. If history is anything to go by this is not an unintended side effect, which would suggest that ls is oriented towards composition, even if poorly and unexclusively so.