I've dealt with systems where you need to update a file with a list of executables and their location. Having the shell handle that automatically is better.
Specifically when I install multiple versions of a library, or install a new library that I don't know, I don't want to dink with the path. I don't see any reason I should have to run this command `export PATH="/path/to/executable:$PATH`. I think that this is bad for 3 reasons:
1. It's error prone because you can easily make typos 2. You have to dink with it to switch which executable you want 3. This is such an insanely common task, it seems ludicrous that we haven't come up with a simple command to register executables!
I think the reason you are getting pushback is that you’ve proposed a complex replacement to a simple existing solution which basically just isn’t a problem. Most developers become allergic to complexity over time, hence the response.
It sounds like your actual problem is with the homebrew project, not with $PATH.
I thought up another thing wrong with path. I think path should be configurable to search relative paths as well. So I could configure it so that it always searched node_modules/bin for executables as well. What do you think?