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By the time I learned how to create symlinks I'm Windows, I didn't need it.
Windows can do symlinks now? Watch out, they're slowly catching up.
This is like seeing those php jokes in programming humor communities. Because they're clearly made by someone who is well over a decade out of date with their information.
For reference symbolic links were properly introduced in Vista(2006), but junction points were available before that.
MS Windows and PHP... yeah I can see the resemblance. They're both crufty old tools that are obsolete for more than a decade but still widely used and talked about.
So are you, it seems…
"Create Shortcut on Desktop"
I used symlinks with windows in like... 2007?
You used to need admin or something like that. It's only since about 2017 that they are available to normal users by default.
It seems to have been a win 7 innovation. Personally I gave up on it after XP.
Think I first used a Symlink in about 1998.
Pretty sure NT had the capability, though even the docs then advised against them.
though even the docs then advised against them.
Why wouldn't they want users using them?
Hard and soft links have existed on NTFS for decades at this point
This seems to be about junctions not shortcuts (which are at a higher level of abstraction)
Or giving in. Symlinks are a lazy hacky mistake. The original Unix authors knew it and tried to fix it in Plan9, but I guess now we're stuck with that mistake forever. Even WASI supports symlinks.
It doesn't matter if a bunch of crusty compsci academics think something is bad if it just works™ in real life
And I am saying this as an academic. I've seen my colleagues write lots of papers that faded like a fart in a fan factory while Unix is still chewing ass and kicking gum 1970s style
What would have been a better solution?
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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