I think the confusion comes because you have to do ln -s bar foo so that "ls -l" then prints foo -> bar People who look at an existing symlink befor

I think the confusion comes because you have to do ln -s bar foo so that "ls -l" then prints foo -> bar People who look at an existing symlink before trying to create a new one will get confused. Of course, the solution is to remember that ln is in the same family as cp and mv; ls is a different family.