/bin/ls vs .dotted files

[Dan Cross]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 2:06 PM, sad at bestmx.ru <sad at bestmx.ru> wrote:
> Chris Turner:
>> On 09/13/12 19:41, Matthew Dillon wrote:
>>>
>>>      I can't think of a good reason why f_listdot is set for root
>>>      automatically,
>>
>> Agreed -
>>
>> Except that if you're root, you don't want to be 'user friendlyified'
>> and miss files that should be found/removed/inspected/etc, possibly.
>
> it is not about human-user anyway but root-executed scripts.
> taking in account that human-user used to have .dotted files hidden,
> he wants his scripts to see the same (it makes programming more natural)

It's not at all clear to me how this makes 'programming' more natural.

>> who says these dot files should be hidden anyway?
>
> shell *-expantion said that.

Using what shell?  The shell is just a program; one can write a shell
that handles wildcard expansion differently.  For instance, Plan 9's
'rc' shell shows dot files, even in its port to Unix:

% echo *
.config .forward .gitconfig .plan .profile .ssh .subversion Mail RCS
bin lib personal srexp sys tmp www
%

If you had said, "shell wildcard expansion as mandated by POSIX" I'd
be more willing to entertain that, but POSIX also specifically allows
for the 'ls' behavior that you are complaining about.

        - Dan C.