When your goal is to "reduce clutter" then 2 layers would be the minimum. You make another 4(?) folders in my home-directory and call that reducing clutter?
I can see a clear and very useful difference between RUNTIME_DIR, CACHE_DIR, and CONFIG_DIR. Consider a scenario where $HOME is on a networked filesystem. RUNTIME_DIR has to be outside that, and local to the machine's namespace. That's because it references things inherently local to the machine. That is, pids and pipes. These wouldn't make sense on any other machine and will just make the application's job harder.
I also set CACHE_DIR to be local (/tmp/$USER.cache.) That's because caching performs terribly when it's flying over the network. Chrome is the main culprit for me. It also fills my file quota with hours of using it. However, it's still useful to keep that data in the medium term.
CONFIG_DIR and DATA_DIR, however, don't seem to be very different to me. I can't imagine a scenario where I want one but not the other. I might be using the wrong sort of applications. (For the record I have 8 files in .config, 10 dot files, and just 1 in .local/share.)
Due to the semantics you now suddenly need a cronjob or similar abomination that traverses all home-directories and picks out stuff ("MUST" be blown away).
Having RUNTIME_DIR on a tmpfs, like what most distributions do with /var/run, solves that problem. I map mine to /var/run/$user, even though I've yet to see an application actually use it. The spec BTW doesn't even specify the default value!
And what the heck is going in .local anyways? When the user saves a file then he pretty surely doesn't want it buried under some dot-directory.
I agree, the default values are silly. This, like most of Modern Unix, is an ugly hack which makes dealing with the rest of the ugly hacks a bit easier. If you want an elegant solution you'll probably have to throw away most of what was added during last 20 years. May I suggest starting with sockets?
I can see a clear and very useful difference between RUNTIME_DIR, CACHE_DIR, and CONFIG_DIR. Consider a scenario where $HOME is on a networked filesystem. RUNTIME_DIR has to be outside that, and local to the machine's namespace. That's because it references things inherently local to the machine. That is, pids and pipes. These wouldn't make sense on any other machine and will just make the application's job harder.
I also set CACHE_DIR to be local (/tmp/$USER.cache.) That's because caching performs terribly when it's flying over the network. Chrome is the main culprit for me. It also fills my file quota with hours of using it. However, it's still useful to keep that data in the medium term.
CONFIG_DIR and DATA_DIR, however, don't seem to be very different to me. I can't imagine a scenario where I want one but not the other. I might be using the wrong sort of applications. (For the record I have 8 files in .config, 10 dot files, and just 1 in .local/share.)
Due to the semantics you now suddenly need a cronjob or similar abomination that traverses all home-directories and picks out stuff ("MUST" be blown away).
Having RUNTIME_DIR on a tmpfs, like what most distributions do with /var/run, solves that problem. I map mine to /var/run/$user, even though I've yet to see an application actually use it. The spec BTW doesn't even specify the default value!
And what the heck is going in .local anyways? When the user saves a file then he pretty surely doesn't want it buried under some dot-directory.
I agree, the default values are silly. This, like most of Modern Unix, is an ugly hack which makes dealing with the rest of the ugly hacks a bit easier. If you want an elegant solution you'll probably have to throw away most of what was added during last 20 years. May I suggest starting with sockets?