5 ms·

Or accept the fact that we're in 2025 and not follow Unix conventions from when paper and printer ink were expensive and they were printing out listings, and ju

by oblio 1y ago

Or accept the fact that we're in 2025 and not follow Unix conventions from when paper and printer ink were expensive and they were printing out listings, and just name the thing "source". I've gotten used to it, obviously - as someone with a career in IT for 20 years - but /etc & co. annoy me to no end. I know it will never change, I know why it won't change, I know GoboLinux will be just an interesting experiment, but it's still annoying.

wahern 1y ago
we're -> we are I've -> I have & -> and co. -> company won't -> will not it's -> it is
- csvm 1y ago
  What is the point of this? What is this adding to the conversation?
  - Pavilion2095 1y ago
    Fun.
    - mannycalavera42 1y ago
      upvote
  - jadamson 1y ago
    What I took out of it is that we are human, and humans use abbreviations to save time and effort, not because printer ink was expensive in the '70s.
    - oblio 1y ago
      The abbreviations I wrote are unambiguous. When I first learned about Unix, I basically guessed - I assume as most first timers do - that the folder is basically the location of miscellaneous files ("et caetera"). Oh, let alone the fact that a bunch of the abbreviations are utterly non-intuitive to first timers. /bin - binaries - nobody born after circa 1980 calls them that anymore. Executables, applications, apps, etc. /boot - from a lame Baron Munchausen joke from 1970. Should probably be /startup. /dev - dev is SUPER commonly used for "development". Easy enough to solve as /devices. /home - okish, probably one of the best named that are actually in there. I'm shocked it's not /ho or /hm. /lib - reasonable. Though these days in the US it might trigger political feelings :-p /media - new and reasonable. /mnt - the whole metaphor of "mounting" is... debatable.https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/144012-unix-sex/ https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/144012-unix-sex/ /opt - what does this even do? Optional? Optional WHAT? Absolutely 0 semantic info provided by the name. Anyway, a lot of people have done this criticism better than me and it's boring at this point.
      - jadamson 1y ago
        > The abbreviations I wrote are unambiguous. When I first learned about Unix, I basically guessed They're completely ambiguous to someone who doesn't speak English. > /mnt - the whole metaphor of "mounting" is... debatable What? Have you never heard of mounting a picture on a wall? Mounting an engine? That's the metaphor. > Anyway, a lot of people have done this criticism better than me and it's boring at this point. Your original complaint was about "src", suggesting calling it "source", which is still ambiguous by your own standard. Source of what? How is someone going to know what "source" means if they've never heard of booting a computer? Who is the audience for this change? Some of your suggestions aren't meritless, but your jumping-off point certainly was.
        oblio 1y ago
        > They're completely ambiguous to someone who doesn't speak English. The baseline is English and that's life. I'm not a native English speaker.
- oblio 1y ago
  LOL ROFLMAO
- Lockal 1y ago
  /usr -> Program Files (hello spaces my old friends, you've come to break my apps again) /var -> ProgramData (but no spaces here) /home -> Documents and Settings /etc -> Control Panel
  - codedokode 1y ago
    Spaces break things only in Lnux; Mac and Windows support them since beginning. Why should we write without spaces as if we were in 5th century?
    - jadamson 1y ago
      Spaces are avoided on base Linux systems because they're clunky for terminals more than fear of outright breaking things. To the extent spaces there do break things, that also happens on Mac and Windows for the same reasons (hence ProgramData being conspicuously space-less).
  - tracker1 1y ago
    /home -> Users (it's not 1998 anymore)
von_lohengramm 1y ago
Have you considered that there are other metrics people are optimizing for nowadays? Perhaps typeability, screen real estate, familiarity/convention, etc.? Do you really want /User Files/Bob's Files/Coding Projects/Python Projects/Bob's Cool Python Library/Source Code/Model Files/SomeObject.py?
- Propelloni 1y ago
  Path length is still a thing in MS Windows, so be careful ;)
  - tracker1 1y ago
    Depends on the WinAPI used... I still use C:/src instead of C:/Users/MyUser/src for that reason when working in windows all the same though. Too many unixy utils don't leverage the apis with the longer path, not to mention not supporting the internal certificate store and proxy config.
- oblio 1y ago
  1. Yes, I have, if you re-read my comment. 2. I don't want to fight extreme positions which I did not make. Read this: https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html I didn't say paths have to have spaces, etc. Just be reasonable and <<use full words in the year of our lord 2025>>.
  - jadamson 1y ago
    The first shell listing starts with `cd` and `ls`, the former being run in `~`. What does that weird `~` mean? Very strange. More seriously, their file system is still case-sensitive, and inside /Programs they have `Iptables` and `Fontconfig`, naively capitalized, but also `OpenOffice` and `HTTPD`. Not to mention that inside each program folder are `man` and `bin` as usual. I'm going to suggest the point of that article is structure and organization, not naming. Nobody reasonable complains about a three-letter abbreviation you can type with one hand. For a path you're either accessing a lot or never at all, it makes complete sense.
globular-toast 1y ago
Call it whatever you like. I don't care and that clearly wasn't the point of my comment. One thing I've learnt, though, is unless you have a very good reason to try to change language you should just talk the same language as everyone else. I don't like the American short billion. It makes no sense and it's less useful. But that's what I use because I speak English and that's what we use now. If I see a src/ directory I know exactly what it is. If I see source/ it will give me pause. Get over it IMO.
- oblio 1y ago
  > If I see a src/ directory I know exactly what it is. If I see source/ it will give me pause. Pause for what, coffee? How does this even make sense? What could possibly be inside source/, if not the exact same thing as in src/?
  - von_lohengramm 1y ago
    While the meaning of "source" may be intuitively obvious, it's still relatively unfamiliar as "src" is far more prevalent than "source" when referring to source files. While "id est" may be equivalent to "i.e.", you'd still naturally pause when reading text using the former instead of the latter, because the latter is far more prevalent in usage than the former.
pompous_1234 1y ago
$HOME/accept/the/fact/that/were/in/2025/and/not/follow/unix/conventions/from/when/paper/and/printer/ink/were/expensive/and/they/were/printing/out/listings/and/just/name/the/thing/source/main.c
HumanOstrich 1y ago
/Library/System/Applications/Core/Security/Daemons.app/Framework/Version 4.6.2/Let's not go full Apple please.

by oblio 1y ago

wahern 1y ago

we're -> we are I've -> I have & -> and co. -> company won't -> will not it's -> it is

csvm 1y ago
What is the point of this? What is this adding to the conversation?
- Pavilion2095 1y ago
  Fun.
  - mannycalavera42 1y ago
    upvote
- jadamson 1y ago
  What I took out of it is that we are human, and humans use abbreviations to save time and effort, not because printer ink was expensive in the '70s.
  - oblio 1y ago
    The abbreviations I wrote are unambiguous. When I first learned about Unix, I basically guessed - I assume as most first timers do - that the folder is basically the location of miscellaneous files ("et caetera"). Oh, let alone the fact that a bunch of the abbreviations are utterly non-intuitive to first timers. /bin - binaries - nobody born after circa 1980 calls them that anymore. Executables, applications, apps, etc. /boot - from a lame Baron Munchausen joke from 1970. Should probably be /startup. /dev - dev is SUPER commonly used for "development". Easy enough to solve as /devices. /home - okish, probably one of the best named that are actually in there. I'm shocked it's not /ho or /hm. /lib - reasonable. Though these days in the US it might trigger political feelings :-p /media - new and reasonable. /mnt - the whole metaphor of "mounting" is... debatable.https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/144012-unix-sex/ https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/144012-unix-sex/ /opt - what does this even do? Optional? Optional WHAT? Absolutely 0 semantic info provided by the name. Anyway, a lot of people have done this criticism better than me and it's boring at this point.
    - jadamson 1y ago
      > The abbreviations I wrote are unambiguous. When I first learned about Unix, I basically guessed They're completely ambiguous to someone who doesn't speak English. > /mnt - the whole metaphor of "mounting" is... debatable What? Have you never heard of mounting a picture on a wall? Mounting an engine? That's the metaphor. > Anyway, a lot of people have done this criticism better than me and it's boring at this point. Your original complaint was about "src", suggesting calling it "source", which is still ambiguous by your own standard. Source of what? How is someone going to know what "source" means if they've never heard of booting a computer? Who is the audience for this change? Some of your suggestions aren't meritless, but your jumping-off point certainly was.
      - oblio 1y ago
        > They're completely ambiguous to someone who doesn't speak English. The baseline is English and that's life. I'm not a native English speaker.
oblio 1y ago
LOL ROFLMAO
Lockal 1y ago
/usr -> Program Files (hello spaces my old friends, you've come to break my apps again) /var -> ProgramData (but no spaces here) /home -> Documents and Settings /etc -> Control Panel
- codedokode 1y ago
  Spaces break things only in Lnux; Mac and Windows support them since beginning. Why should we write without spaces as if we were in 5th century?
  - jadamson 1y ago
    Spaces are avoided on base Linux systems because they're clunky for terminals more than fear of outright breaking things. To the extent spaces there do break things, that also happens on Mac and Windows for the same reasons (hence ProgramData being conspicuously space-less).
- tracker1 1y ago
  /home -> Users (it's not 1998 anymore)

von_lohengramm 1y ago

Have you considered that there are other metrics people are optimizing for nowadays? Perhaps typeability, screen real estate, familiarity/convention, etc.? Do you really want /User Files/Bob's Files/Coding Projects/Python Projects/Bob's Cool Python Library/Source Code/Model Files/SomeObject.py?

Propelloni 1y ago
Path length is still a thing in MS Windows, so be careful ;)
- tracker1 1y ago
  Depends on the WinAPI used... I still use C:/src instead of C:/Users/MyUser/src for that reason when working in windows all the same though. Too many unixy utils don't leverage the apis with the longer path, not to mention not supporting the internal certificate store and proxy config.
oblio 1y ago
1. Yes, I have, if you re-read my comment. 2. I don't want to fight extreme positions which I did not make. Read this: https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html I didn't say paths have to have spaces, etc. Just be reasonable and <<use full words in the year of our lord 2025>>.
- jadamson 1y ago
  The first shell listing starts with `cd` and `ls`, the former being run in `~`. What does that weird `~` mean? Very strange. More seriously, their file system is still case-sensitive, and inside /Programs they have `Iptables` and `Fontconfig`, naively capitalized, but also `OpenOffice` and `HTTPD`. Not to mention that inside each program folder are `man` and `bin` as usual. I'm going to suggest the point of that article is structure and organization, not naming. Nobody reasonable complains about a three-letter abbreviation you can type with one hand. For a path you're either accessing a lot or never at all, it makes complete sense.

globular-toast 1y ago

Call it whatever you like. I don't care and that clearly wasn't the point of my comment. One thing I've learnt, though, is unless you have a very good reason to try to change language you should just talk the same language as everyone else. I don't like the American short billion. It makes no sense and it's less useful. But that's what I use because I speak English and that's what we use now. If I see a src/ directory I know exactly what it is. If I see source/ it will give me pause. Get over it IMO.

oblio 1y ago
> If I see a src/ directory I know exactly what it is. If I see source/ it will give me pause. Pause for what, coffee? How does this even make sense? What could possibly be inside source/, if not the exact same thing as in src/?
- von_lohengramm 1y ago
  While the meaning of "source" may be intuitively obvious, it's still relatively unfamiliar as "src" is far more prevalent than "source" when referring to source files. While "id est" may be equivalent to "i.e.", you'd still naturally pause when reading text using the former instead of the latter, because the latter is far more prevalent in usage than the former.

pompous_1234 1y ago

$HOME/accept/the/fact/that/were/in/2025/and/not/follow/unix/conventions/from/when/paper/and/printer/ink/were/expensive/and/they/were/printing/out/listings/and/just/name/the/thing/source/main.c

HumanOstrich 1y ago

/Library/System/Applications/Core/Security/Daemons.app/Framework/Version 4.6.2/Let's not go full Apple please.