Do you understand that filesystem drivers are yet another example of places where software developers need to do these types of operations which you're dismissi

Do you understand that filesystem drivers are yet another example of places where software developers need to do these types of operations which you're dismissing as "very strange things?" How do you propose that I, a person who among other things develops filesystems, implement a canonicalization table without doing these "very strange things?" Furthermore, filesystem operations are not limited to calls into the filesystem driver. Programs often need to deal with paths outside of filesystem calls: The names of files need to be displayed on screens. They need to be indexed in databases and searched for. They need to be encapsulated within other protocols and data formats and often need to be parsed and understood. You are essentially agreeing with me that these are normal, necessary things. Your position appears to be "someone else does that type of thing for me," which is not a very compelling argument.