Re: ls is broken, what's next cd?

[Eric Blake]

On 02/06/2018 03:38 AM, Kamil Dudka wrote:
> I do not need to search as I have been following the discussions in real time.
> It is always the same.  GNU coreutils authors explain why changing the default
> was a good idea whereas all other users explain why the change was unexpected
> at best and desperately ask for revert.

This is a logical fallacy, you are relying on confirmation bias.  The 
users that are complaining are quite possibly a disproportionate set of 
overall users.  The users that are not bothered by the change, or have 
not even noticed it, or which even appreciate the changes, are not 
complaining.  But there is no easy way to determine which percentage of 
the population are opposed to the new default, vs. those which are okay 
with the new default, because only those opposed to the default are 
complaining on the list.

> The question is *not* which quoting style is better default.  The question is
> whether GNU coreutils users appreciate the *change* of the well-known default.

The change has already been made.  Even if we now revert it, users still 
have to deal with versions in the wild that have the change.  So since 
users already have to deal with it, they might as well always have to 
deal with it.  We prefer a default of erring on the side of safety when 
it comes to output that is ambiguous or could corrupt a terminal, but 
leave enough knobs that you can customize a different default for your 
preferred setup.

--
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3266
Virtualization:  qemu.org | libvirt.org