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hauleth.dev
1---
2title: "Stop Spreading C\\*\\*p at My `$HOME`"
3date: 2020-04-15T12:00:19+02:00
4tags:
5 - programming
6 - culture
7---
8
9**Disclaimer:** Yes, this is a rant. Yes, I am displeased with state of
10software. And yes, I can use some harsh words. You were warned.
11
12For a some time now we have [Filesystem Hierarchy Standard][fhs] which describes
13which data goes where in your \*nix installation. In fact we have that for 28
14years, which is almost as long as I live. This is quite some time. But for
15whatever reason we apply that only for the system hierarchy and we cannot have
16the same for something much closer to our heart - our dear `$HOME`.
17
18Common practice for storing all the stuff for different applications is to use
19dot files stored in `$HOME`. These are files or directories starting with dot in
20their name which makes such files "hidden" on Unix systems. There is problem
21though. First let me show you all the files starting with dot in my `$HOME`:
22
23```
24-r-------- 1 hauleth staff 9 Mar 30 2019 .CFUserTextEncoding
25-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 16388 Apr 9 11:46 .DS_Store
26drwx------ 2 hauleth staff 64 Apr 13 20:54 .Trash
27-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 17835 Apr 10 21:17 .bash_history
28drwx------ 12 hauleth staff 384 Mar 30 2019 .bash_sessions
29drwxr-xr-x 13 hauleth staff 416 Mar 26 14:02 .cache
30lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 40 Aug 21 2019 .chunkwmrc
31drwxr-xr-x 20 hauleth staff 640 Apr 15 21:59 .config
32drwx------ 3 hauleth staff 96 Apr 20 2019 .cups
33lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 39 Aug 21 2019 .curlrc
34lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 43 Aug 21 2019 .dir_colors
35-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 2587 Sep 10 2019 .direnvrc
36drwxr-xr-x 6 hauleth staff 192 Apr 14 18:27 .docker
37drwx------ 14 hauleth staff 448 Oct 1 2019 .dropbox
38-r-------- 1 hauleth staff 20 Apr 1 2019 .erlang.cookie
39drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Jul 1 2019 .gem
40-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 518 Mar 25 22:44 .gitconfig
41drwx------ 14 hauleth staff 448 Apr 15 22:03 .gnupg
42drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 Apr 2 2019 .hammerspoon
43drwxr-xr-x 5 hauleth staff 160 Apr 14 19:39 .hex
44drwx------ 3 hauleth staff 96 Apr 26 2019 .httpie
45-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 165 Feb 22 13:50 .jlassetregistry.json
46drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Nov 29 22:13 .jssc
47drwxr-xr-x 9 hauleth staff 288 Feb 21 17:46 .julia
48drwx------ 14 hauleth staff 448 Oct 2 2019 .keychain
49drwxr-x--- 5 hauleth staff 160 Jan 24 12:20 .kube
50-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 720 Apr 15 16:29 .lesshst
51drwxr-x--- 3 root staff 96 Apr 3 2019 .lldb
52drwx------ 4 hauleth staff 128 Dec 18 14:16 .local
53drwxr-xr-x 8 hauleth staff 256 Mar 20 12:29 .mitmproxy
54drwxr-xr-x 18 hauleth staff 576 Apr 13 14:36 .mix
55-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 116 Apr 13 20:59 .nix-channels
56drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 Apr 14 13:47 .nix-defexpr
57lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 46 Feb 1 22:13 .nix-profile
58drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Sep 27 2019 .npm
59drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Dec 19 14:05 .pex
60-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 183 May 2 2019 .profile
61drwxr-xr-x 5 hauleth staff 160 Mar 20 16:27 .proxyman
62drwxr-xr-x 2 hauleth staff 64 Feb 17 14:09 .proxyman-data
63-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 1391 Jan 22 11:46 .psql_history
64-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 1950 Feb 19 12:42 .python_history
65lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 37 Aug 21 2019 .skhdrc
66drwx------ 11 hauleth staff 352 Oct 2 2019 .ssh
67drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 May 8 2019 .terraform.d
68drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 Dec 1 21:52 .thumbnails
69drwxr-xr-x 9 hauleth staff 288 Mar 9 17:14 .vagrant.d
70-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 11124 Apr 13 20:21 .viminfo
71lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 37 Aug 21 2019 .vimrc
72drwx------ 4 hauleth staff 128 Nov 8 16:51 .w3m
73drwxr-xr-x 37 hauleth staff 1184 Apr 13 21:21 .weechat
74```
75
76As you can see, there is bunch of them, some are linked to my dotfiles
77repository, but most are not. What is the problem there?
78
79The spread.
80
81All of the data is smeared between gazillion of different filed with different
82types of data. This causes headaches because:
83
84- I cannot easily backup all the configuration as I need to check each file
85 independently to check if this is configuration file or it is data
86- I cannot exclude data from my backups in a uniform way. I need to check each
87 file independently and exclude it, remembering to do that for each new tool
88 that I add. Alternatively I can use whitelist instead of blacklist of paths
89 that I want to backup, but that pretty much defies the idea of having
90 automatic backup.
91- Cleaning up the old caches and data is troublesome as user need to review all
92 the folders and know what data they see mean.
93
94But what We can do? Well, the macOS and Windows got it somewhat right, these
95OSes provide special paths for storing all configuration, caches, user-data,
96etc. in special, dedicated, and well known locations within user directories. It
97is like mentioned earlier FHS but for `$HOME`.
98
99Unfortunately no other OS out there had:
100
1011. Power to force developers to behave reasonably
1022. Standard to which developers should adhere to
103
104Unfortunately the 1st point is still true, but the 2nd one is somewhat resolved
105in form of [XDG Base Directory Specification][xdg]. This is pretty short,
106simple, and straightforward spec where which data should go.
107
108This makes life so much easier:
109
110- Want to have backup your configuration? Just copy `$HOME/.config` where you
111 want.
112- Want to reset your configuration to base one? Just delete `$HOME/.config`.
113- Want to cleanup caches? Remove `$HOME/.cache`.
114- Etc.
115
116It makes your `$HOME` much cleaner, much more manageable, much more like your
117place, where you are the ruler, not as a manager of the bulletin board or the
118storage house.
119
120At one point I was even considering to have approach similar to [one taken by
121Graham Christensen][delete-your-darlings], but that would make my life even more
122miserable instead of forcing developers to fix their software.
123
124Just in case, this is not only mine view on the state of configuration files,
125just see [old Google+ post by Rob Pike][pike] where he states exactly the same
126thing that FreeDesktop team try to address. I may not agree on all the concepts
127with Commander, but this one I vote all-fours.
128
129For these who want to stop that madness and fix at least some software out there
130that is broken, you can check out [my script][xdg-please] that tries to fix
131(at least partially) non-conforming software.
132
133---
134
135**TL;DR**
136
137Please, stop leaving your c\*\*p in my `$HOME` and call it "installation". If
138you want that, then I think you should find nearest Modern Art Gallery.
139
140---
141
142You can comment it on [Lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs/s/va7gic/stop_spreading_c_p_at_my_home)
143or [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22882590) or @ me on
144Twitter.
145
146[fhs]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
147[xdg]: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/index.html
148[delete-your-darlings]: https://grahamc.com/blog/erase-your-darlings
149[pike]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180827160401/plus.google.com/+RobPikeTheHuman/posts/R58WgWwN9jp
150[xdg-please]: https://github.com/hauleth/xdg-rlz