We have hard links, but is there any good UI out there for them? I only know of using the ln command directly. Or put another way, do you know of anyone who actually uses hard links in a way similar to how a tagging filesystem would be used? What are the obstacles that prevent this use case from being easy or discoverable enough to be in common use?
With a tagging system you can remove tags without fear of losing file data. But with hard links you could easily delete the last link without realizing that it’s the last link, and then the file is gone.
That relates to another issue: in a tagging system you can look at file metadata to see all of the file’s tags. Is there a convenient way to do that with hard links? I see there is find . -samefile /path/to/one/link, but requiring a filesystem scan is not optimal.
That’s not an unreasonable answer. But I find this thread a little frustrating. As I see it, it’s gone like this:
Why bring up hard links if people shouldn’t use them for the requested use case? I mean, I do think your original reply was interesting and relevant as a starting point to get to what I think OP has in mind. But that line of thinking does require getting into how to use hard links for a non-hierarchical workflow.
I feel like OP was trying to start a discussion about what might be, if things were different. I tried to reply in the same spirit. I feel like I’m asking, “What if things were different?”, and I’m being told “It doesn’t work that way.” Which doesn’t feel like an especially helpful response to me.