Probably: “oh we already have a -r for xxx, let’s do recursion with -R”

My complaint was mostly targeting the big picture of everything living in /bin/

I inferred the ‘user 0’ thing to their credit like you, it just still felt really strange as numerals are kind of a no no when programming – you can’t begin variable and other names with them and I guess having them as a suffix feels strange too as it’s not common practice.

It will definitely be the only utility I recall that uses a numeral.

To me the whole numeral systems are archaic, User ID numbers don’t line up when transferring data from hard drives from another machine eg 1000-1005.

The numeral permission system is archaic and requires explicit knowledge to know the difference between a 7 6 and 4. In GUI Immutability is separate when it should be more integrated as a file control. The octal permissions are from another decade and modern platforms have permissions on whether a executible can access the internet, access input devices like camera or microphone, or sensitive data like contacts, pictures, etc…

I think file tagging should be greatly expanded, IDv3 meta data for example was a workaround for the limitations and the core filesystem should have robust enough tagging to make it unnecessary.

I’ll be controversial now – eliminate the . prefix to hide files. Yes I know it had been this way for decades and was grandfathered in as a feature after a bug, that should have been in the filesystem properties like chattr +I and you shouldn’t need .hidden indexes to hide files just like windows and osx litters zip files with MDF or inf or whatever (memory is fuzzy from non use).

Some people say “4 character” limit, that needs to go too – FHS naming structure is confusing and not self evident what it does to people trying to learn who already have IT training. /etc/ having 2 or more bins /bin vs /usr/bin – ‘what does usr mean the new it ponders’ ‘oh it must mean ‘user’ I guess’. – weird stuff like that.

To systemd credit they have no problem being controversial and relentlessly persuing their vision in a practical way, hell I use their stuff hapilly.

I just feel like the run0 thing is a band aid on bigger problems, and AI critique would be very fascinating to make these human interfaces you know… more for us humans :P

If not systemd, maybe the rust people or someone else will be baller enough to try to tackle these funny ackward quirks that have accumulated over the years and straighten it all out.