There are other problems with symlinks too: http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/sy... | Hacker News

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uriel on Oct 5, 2011 | parent | context | favorite | on: Rob Pike comments on Ryan Dahl's rant

There are other problems with symlinks too: http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/symlinks

Every command that operates on files needs an extra flag to tell it whatever it should follow symlinks, or operate on the target, or on the symlink itself, etc.

mansr on Oct 5, 2011 [–]

Only commands capable of doing something meaningful with symlinks need such a flag. These are a minority.

uriel on Oct 5, 2011 | [–]

Any program that manipulates or traverses file trees is affected, and a few more, in an OS that is built around the concept of hierarchical file systems, this is quite a few.

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