5 ms·

That's why some files like gitignore and clang-format start with a dot? Some old way of hiding the file? How bizarre. I had no idea it was actually related to

That's why some files like gitignore and clang-format start with a dot? Some old way of hiding the file? How bizarre. I had no idea it was actually related to the . and .. files.

deathanatos 4y ago
> Some old way of hiding the file? An old way, but also it's still the way to hide a file, on *nix systems. (Hence the "mistake", and the countless hours mentioned in TFA are still adding up, as people forget them when they shouldn't, or don't exclude them when they should…)
- trebbble 4y ago
  Practically the only remotely common desktop or server OS where it's not still a normal way to hide files, is Windows.
  - naniwaduni 4y ago
    Windows is very common.
    - trebbble 4y ago
      I didn't mean to imply that Windows is uncommon, but that you have to get pretty damn obscure to find another modern desktop or server OS that doesn't do the dot-equals-hidden thing. Windows is the most common on the desktop, obviously, but if you step outside it you're almost certainly in dot-is-hidden territory.
      - naniwaduni 4y ago
        Windows is still so overwhelmingly common that it's very possible to never have occasion to touch "another" desktop or server OS. Especially if you don't go out of your way to manage servers, and doubly so if you don't live in one of the rich economies.
        xdennis 4y ago
        GP is saying "out of the many commonly used OSes, Windows is the only one which doesn't hide dot files", not that "Windows is an uncommon OS". But it all makes sense, Windows is CP/M based, not Unix based.
    - cafeinux 4y ago
      Unfortunately
  - em-bee 4y ago
    that's because they are all based on unix. or is there any remotely common OS besides windows that is not based on unix? a few decades ago macOS, amiga and atari were rather common, which all don't follow that convention. i don't know about BeOS/haiku. but if that hides dot-files then it's because they ported a lot of unix tools for commandline use. i could not find anything about OS/2 but i suspect that it worked like windows.
  - shadowofneptune 4y ago
    Windows NT was designed by former DEC employees. DEC had a rather low opinion of Unix and dotfiles definitely would have been one of the lazy hacks they disliked.
wizofaus 4y ago
The question is why anyone feels files like .gitignore should be hidden by default from ls output - there even seems to be disagreement between versions of git whether git itself ignores such files by default (using git add e.g.), though I don't believe it does, can't check currently.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Was finally able to check on one of my repos and git 2.34.1 most definitely does ignore . files by default (both git status and git add), unless you specify --ignore for git status or --force for git add. But my .gitignore (either for the clone or global core.excludesfile) doesn't specify that . files should be ignored, so why is it doing so? I can't see how to do a git add to add all new files, including dot files, except those in .gitignore.

That's why some files like gitignore and clang-format start with a dot? Some old way of hiding the file? How bizarre. I had no idea it was actually related to the . and .. files.

deathanatos 4y ago

> Some old way of hiding the file? An old way, but also it's still the way to hide a file, on *nix systems. (Hence the "mistake", and the countless hours mentioned in TFA are still adding up, as people forget them when they shouldn't, or don't exclude them when they should…)

trebbble 4y ago
Practically the only remotely common desktop or server OS where it's not still a normal way to hide files, is Windows.
- naniwaduni 4y ago
  Windows is very common.
  - trebbble 4y ago
    I didn't mean to imply that Windows is uncommon, but that you have to get pretty damn obscure to find another modern desktop or server OS that doesn't do the dot-equals-hidden thing. Windows is the most common on the desktop, obviously, but if you step outside it you're almost certainly in dot-is-hidden territory.
    - naniwaduni 4y ago
      Windows is still so overwhelmingly common that it's very possible to never have occasion to touch "another" desktop or server OS. Especially if you don't go out of your way to manage servers, and doubly so if you don't live in one of the rich economies.
      - xdennis 4y ago
        GP is saying "out of the many commonly used OSes, Windows is the only one which doesn't hide dot files", not that "Windows is an uncommon OS". But it all makes sense, Windows is CP/M based, not Unix based.
  - cafeinux 4y ago
    Unfortunately
- em-bee 4y ago
  that's because they are all based on unix. or is there any remotely common OS besides windows that is not based on unix? a few decades ago macOS, amiga and atari were rather common, which all don't follow that convention. i don't know about BeOS/haiku. but if that hides dot-files then it's because they ported a lot of unix tools for commandline use. i could not find anything about OS/2 but i suspect that it worked like windows.
- shadowofneptune 4y ago
  Windows NT was designed by former DEC employees. DEC had a rather low opinion of Unix and dotfiles definitely would have been one of the lazy hacks they disliked.

wizofaus 4y ago

The question is why anyone feels files like .gitignore should be hidden by default from ls output - there even seems to be disagreement between versions of git whether git itself ignores such files by default (using git add e.g.), though I don't believe it does, can't check currently.

wizofaus 4y ago
Was finally able to check on one of my repos and git 2.34.1 most definitely does ignore . files by default (both git status and git add), unless you specify --ignore for git status or --force for git add. But my .gitignore (either for the clone or global core.excludesfile) doesn't specify that . files should be ignored, so why is it doing so? I can't see how to do a git add to add all new files, including dot files, except those in .gitignore.