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title: "Stop Spreading C\\*\\*p at My `$HOME`"
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date: 2020-04-15T12:00:19+02:00
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**Disclaimer:** Yes, this is a rant. Yes, I am displeased with state of
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software. And yes, I can use some harsh words. You were warned.
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For a some time now we have [Filesystem Hierarchy Standard][fhs] which describes
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which data goes where in your \*nix installation. In fact we have that for 28
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years, which is almost as long as I live. This is quite some time. But for
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whatever reason we apply that only for the system hierarchy and we cannot have
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the same for something much closer to our heart - our dear `$HOME`.
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Common practice for storing all the stuff for different applications is to use
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dot files stored in `$HOME`. These are files or directories starting with dot in
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their name which makes such files "hidden" on Unix systems. There is problem
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though. First let me show you all the files starting with dot in my `$HOME`:
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-r-------- 1 hauleth staff 9 Mar 30 2019 .CFUserTextEncoding
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-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 16388 Apr 9 11:46 .DS_Store
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drwx------ 2 hauleth staff 64 Apr 13 20:54 .Trash
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-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 17835 Apr 10 21:17 .bash_history
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drwx------ 12 hauleth staff 384 Mar 30 2019 .bash_sessions
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drwxr-xr-x 13 hauleth staff 416 Mar 26 14:02 .cache
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lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 40 Aug 21 2019 .chunkwmrc
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drwxr-xr-x 20 hauleth staff 640 Apr 15 21:59 .config
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drwx------ 3 hauleth staff 96 Apr 20 2019 .cups
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lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 39 Aug 21 2019 .curlrc
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lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 43 Aug 21 2019 .dir_colors
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-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 2587 Sep 10 2019 .direnvrc
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drwxr-xr-x 6 hauleth staff 192 Apr 14 18:27 .docker
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drwx------ 14 hauleth staff 448 Oct 1 2019 .dropbox
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-r-------- 1 hauleth staff 20 Apr 1 2019 .erlang.cookie
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drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Jul 1 2019 .gem
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-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 518 Mar 25 22:44 .gitconfig
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drwx------ 14 hauleth staff 448 Apr 15 22:03 .gnupg
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drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 Apr 2 2019 .hammerspoon
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drwxr-xr-x 5 hauleth staff 160 Apr 14 19:39 .hex
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drwx------ 3 hauleth staff 96 Apr 26 2019 .httpie
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-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 165 Feb 22 13:50 .jlassetregistry.json
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drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Nov 29 22:13 .jssc
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drwxr-xr-x 9 hauleth staff 288 Feb 21 17:46 .julia
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drwx------ 14 hauleth staff 448 Oct 2 2019 .keychain
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drwxr-x--- 5 hauleth staff 160 Jan 24 12:20 .kube
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-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 720 Apr 15 16:29 .lesshst
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drwxr-x--- 3 root staff 96 Apr 3 2019 .lldb
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drwx------ 4 hauleth staff 128 Dec 18 14:16 .local
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drwxr-xr-x 8 hauleth staff 256 Mar 20 12:29 .mitmproxy
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drwxr-xr-x 18 hauleth staff 576 Apr 13 14:36 .mix
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-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 116 Apr 13 20:59 .nix-channels
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drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 Apr 14 13:47 .nix-defexpr
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lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 46 Feb 1 22:13 .nix-profile
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drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Sep 27 2019 .npm
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drwxr-xr-x 3 hauleth staff 96 Dec 19 14:05 .pex
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-rw-r--r-- 1 hauleth staff 183 May 2 2019 .profile
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drwxr-xr-x 5 hauleth staff 160 Mar 20 16:27 .proxyman
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drwxr-xr-x 2 hauleth staff 64 Feb 17 14:09 .proxyman-data
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-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 1391 Jan 22 11:46 .psql_history
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-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 1950 Feb 19 12:42 .python_history
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lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 37 Aug 21 2019 .skhdrc
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drwx------ 11 hauleth staff 352 Oct 2 2019 .ssh
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drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 May 8 2019 .terraform.d
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drwxr-xr-x 4 hauleth staff 128 Dec 1 21:52 .thumbnails
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drwxr-xr-x 9 hauleth staff 288 Mar 9 17:14 .vagrant.d
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-rw------- 1 hauleth staff 11124 Apr 13 20:21 .viminfo
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lrwxr-xr-x 1 hauleth staff 37 Aug 21 2019 .vimrc
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drwx------ 4 hauleth staff 128 Nov 8 16:51 .w3m
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drwxr-xr-x 37 hauleth staff 1184 Apr 13 21:21 .weechat
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As you can see, there is bunch of them, some are linked to my dotfiles
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repository, but most are not. What is the problem there?
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All of the data is smeared between gazillion of different filed with different
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types of data. This causes headaches because:
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- I cannot easily backup all the configuration as I need to check each file
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independently to check if this is configuration file or it is data
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- I cannot exclude data from my backups in a uniform way. I need to check each
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file independently and exclude it, remembering to do that for each new tool
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that I add. Alternatively I can use whitelist instead of blacklist of paths
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that I want to backup, but that pretty much defies the idea of having
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- Cleaning up the old caches and data is troublesome as user need to review all
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the folders and know what data they see mean.
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But what We can do? Well, the macOS and Windows got it somewhat right, these
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OSes provide special paths for storing all configuration, caches, user-data,
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etc. in special, dedicated, and well known locations within user directories. It
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is like mentioned earlier FHS but for `$HOME`.
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Unfortunately no other OS out there had:
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1. Power to force developers to behave reasonably
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2. Standard to which developers should adhere to
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Unfortunately the 1st point is still true, but the 2nd one is somewhat resolved
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in form of [XDG Base Directory Specification][xdg]. This is pretty short,
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simple, and straightforward spec where which data should go.
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This makes life so much easier:
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- Want to have backup your configuration? Just copy `$HOME/.config` where you
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- Want to reset your configuration to base one? Just delete `$HOME/.config`.
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- Want to cleanup caches? Remove `$HOME/.cache`.
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It makes your `$HOME` much cleaner, much more manageable, much more like your
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place, where you are the ruler, not as a manager of the bulletin board or the
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At one point I was even considering to have approach similar to [one taken by
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Graham Christensen][delete-your-darlings], but that would make my life even more
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miserable instead of forcing developers to fix their software.
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Just in case, this is not only mine view on the state of configuration files,
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just see [old Google+ post by Rob Pike][pike] where he states exactly the same
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thing that FreeDesktop team try to address. I may not agree on all the concepts
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with Commander, but this one I vote all-fours.
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For these who want to stop that madness and fix at least some software out there
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that is broken, you can check out [my script][xdg-please] that tries to fix
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(at least partially) non-conforming software.
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Please, stop leaving your c\*\*p in my `$HOME` and call it "installation". If
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you want that, then I think you should find nearest Modern Art Gallery.
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[fhs]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
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[xdg]: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/index.html
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[delete-your-darlings]: https://grahamc.com/blog/erase-your-darlings
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[pike]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180827160401/plus.google.com/+RobPikeTheHuman/posts/R58WgWwN9jp
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[xdg-please]: https://github.com/hauleth/xdg-rlz
hauleth.dev