Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderTo me, the real problem is not the dotfiles, but the regular (i.e. non-hidden) files that applications surreptitiously create in my home folder. (Which the author does mention as being particularly bad.) dotfiles in the home folder are not a new thing on Linux (e.g. .bashrc, .profile, .emacs, etc.), even if it would be better if more applications used the XDG folders. And if I don't see them when I "ls", they don't bother me. But nowadays, lots of applications…
> You will most likely want to create a default configuration file with sane and sensible default values the first time your program is executed. Please don't. Include the example configuration in your docs (/usr/share/PROG..) and mention it in the manual. Statistically user will have hundreds of apps installed but will only ever customize a small fraction them. So creating config unconditionally on first run is one of the worst contributors to homedir pollution. Another argument is version upgrades: if…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 1340
- Total comments
- 695
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-02-02 | Dotfile madnessFirst breakout · Best thread | boreq | 1146 | 514 |
| 2021-02-19 | Dotfile Madness (2019) | maple3142 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022-10-23 | Dotfile madness (2019)Latest 20+ point return | metadat | 192 | 181 |