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Comment by jasonjayr | Hacker News Reader

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME is usually "~/.config/{app1,...n}" so, it's close? Plus it allows a user to redirect it to a path of their choice, if all apps used it to begin with.

Don't get me wrong -- some of the choices made by the XDG/FreeDesktop folks rub me the wrong way too ...

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No, not quite. XDG-compliant programs end up storing stuff in one or more of the following places:

~/.cache and ~/.config and ~/.local/share and ~/.local/state and ~/.local/bin

I used to get annoyed by non-compliance to XDG. Now I wonder if I'd actually prefer apps to reverse the hierarchy (eg, ~/.apps/nvim/{cache,config,state}).

I would definitely prefer this. I've never wanted to see the "cache" stores for all (XDG-compliant) apps, but often want to see everything for a single app.

It’s less about wanting to see all the caches, and more about excluding all the caches, e.g. from backups. Likewise, there is one directory for machine-independent configuration which you might share, and another for machine-specific state (such as window positions).

Is the spec perfect? No, of course not. But is it thoughtful, and does it address genuine needs? Yes, certainly.

It also enables you do things like:

a) store caches & libdata on different disk

b) consistently 'reset' cached data for kiosk style logins

c) make config read-only, or reset to a known good state

d) Roaming profiles where the cache is excluded from sync across machines

Most computers + home directories are 'personal' where this largly doesn't matter, but there are often sound operational reasons for this seperation in cases where you are responsible for a fleet of computers. I too perfer the 'everything related to this app in one dir' approach. Crazy idea: for apps adhering to XDG, you could point all these vars at a directory under a FUSE-style mount, which then remaps the storage any way you'd like. :)

I find it obnoxious when apps make me hunt for all of their cache directories. Just put all the cache data in one place.

Make it clear what needs to be backed up, what is ephemeral, and so on. Just put everything in ~/.cache. Chromium in particular is bad at this and has many types of cache.

That's where I would probably split myself... ~/.cache/appname for cache data, and ~/.???/appname/* for everything else.

This is a huge part of why I like docker-compose and docker in general, I can put everything I need to backup in a set of volume maps next to each other.

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