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It has been a long time since I read those email correspondences. They are quite hilarious. However, despite the pedantry, /usr/local/bin and /opt/bin are all a

It has been a long time since I read those email correspondences. They are quite hilarious. However, despite the pedantry, /usr/local/bin and /opt/bin are all about not interfering with /usr/bin and /bin. /usr was, of course, made to be a home folder, and converted for the silly reasons mentioned in those old emails (although this was changed back in Plan9 and Inferno), and /usr/bin has maintained a similar idea of being non-essential binaries in many current distros (/bin often belonging to one package, and /usr/bin containing many independently managed packages). You seem to have missed that I did not complain about "Program Files" being nicely organized folders containing all relevant application data (although I am highly allergic to unnecessary capitalization and poor naming), nor say that Windows was the only platform with a mess, but rather complain that there are multiple such program locations (Program Files, Program Files (x86), and some applications install to user folders), that Program Files contain a bunch of entries for things aren't programs (helpers, things that installed elsewhere for stupid reasons, etc.), that AppData is a hidden mess, and that the Windows folder is a ghastly landfill that contains everything under the sky, including things that should have gone in the other locations (system applications, libraries, ...), things that didn't fit anywhere (most of whats in here), and even configuration files in UNIX directory structures (/c/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts). It's a disgusting mess in there that cannot by any meaning of the word be considered organized. Note that I have not used Windows for at most 60 contiguous minutes for the past many years, so my memory may fail me.

JdeBP 9y ago
Repeating the same thing does not make it any less one-sided and misleading. In fact, Microsoft discouraged applications from putting anything into the the windows directory or the system directory from the middle 1990s onwards. * https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms997548.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms997548.aspx * https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110620-00/?p=10393 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110620-00/?p=... * https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120307-00/?p=8153 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120307-00/?p=... And of course the windows directory being a subtree with everything that is part of the operating system, is exactly the same model that people have been adopting with the "/usr merge" from AT&T Unix System 5 Release 4 onwards, and only a "landfill" if one thinks having the operating system in its own single subtree off the root is a "ghastly" idea. The range of operating systems that have done this very thing over the years, with the likes of C:\DRDOS, C:\WINDOWS, C:\OS2, /System, /boot/system, and /usr, are really not for you in that case. By the way, your description of priorities with / overriding /usr overriding /usr/local was as misleading as your idea about interference rather than the far more mundane and ordinary having a second disc. In fact, on systemd operating systems the default path is to search in the order /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin which is the opposite order to your description. FreeBSD nowadays uses a similar order, with _PATH_DEFPATH being /usr/bin:/bin , although _PATH_STDPATH is /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin . OpenBSD goes with /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin for both. The misleadingly simplistic and wrongly ordered /, /usr, /usr/local wasn't even the historical case, moreover. Back in the 1980s people had the likes of /usr/ucb, /usr/lbin, /usr/bin, /usr/5bin, and sometimes even /etc and /usr/etc on the search path. There were actually quite a lot of these. AT&T Unix System 5 Release 4 had them all under /usr in 1988.
- arghwhat 9y ago
  Repeating the same thing does not make an opinion accepted or popular.

JdeBP 9y ago

Repeating the same thing does not make it any less one-sided and misleading. In fact, Microsoft discouraged applications from putting anything into the the windows directory or the system directory from the middle 1990s onwards. * https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms997548.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms997548.aspx * https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110620-00/?p=10393 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110620-00/?p=... * https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120307-00/?p=8153 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120307-00/?p=... And of course the windows directory being a subtree with everything that is part of the operating system, is exactly the same model that people have been adopting with the "/usr merge" from AT&T Unix System 5 Release 4 onwards, and only a "landfill" if one thinks having the operating system in its own single subtree off the root is a "ghastly" idea. The range of operating systems that have done this very thing over the years, with the likes of C:\DRDOS, C:\WINDOWS, C:\OS2, /System, /boot/system, and /usr, are really not for you in that case. By the way, your description of priorities with / overriding /usr overriding /usr/local was as misleading as your idea about interference rather than the far more mundane and ordinary having a second disc. In fact, on systemd operating systems the default path is to search in the order /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin which is the opposite order to your description. FreeBSD nowadays uses a similar order, with _PATH_DEFPATH being /usr/bin:/bin , although _PATH_STDPATH is /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin . OpenBSD goes with /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin for both. The misleadingly simplistic and wrongly ordered /, /usr, /usr/local wasn't even the historical case, moreover. Back in the 1980s people had the likes of /usr/ucb, /usr/lbin, /usr/bin, /usr/5bin, and sometimes even /etc and /usr/etc on the search path. There were actually quite a lot of these. AT&T Unix System 5 Release 4 had them all under /usr in 1988.

arghwhat 9y ago
Repeating the same thing does not make an opinion accepted or popular.