Re: [boost] [filesystem] home_directory_path

Subject: Re: [boost] [filesystem] home_directory_path
From: Alexander Churanov (alexanderchuranov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-10-20 12:42:25

2010/10/20 Stewart, Robert <Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden]>:
> Common knowledge.  Windows is a single user system with multi-user functionality overlaid.  All users have full access to C:\.

I'm afraid that isn't true. Search using google for "vista access to C drive".

> No directory should be overpopulated, as a rule, because directory searches take increasingly long as the number of files grow (though some filesystems are less hampered than others) and because directory listings become unwieldy to grok visually.  The home directory is more important to not over-populate because it is already the location of dot files and all subdirectories leading to other content.  Adding user-generated content to the necessary content makes it harder to use as the jump point to all user content, whether user-generated or locally installed applications/libraries.

Usually users do not put more that a decade of directories in the
home. This is far less than the number of dot files that are already
there.

> I hope these points help to convince you that Filesystem should not return $HOME by default.  It is better to leave that decision to the client code and a convenience default will encourage use of that default, so it ought not to be a default that leads to poor practice.

To my mind saving user-visible files in ${HOME} is an acceptable
practice. The absence of function for obtaining a default folder where
to save documents will kill cross-platformness for this feature.

Alexander Churanov