[detaro]

I'd guess they started with stuff like "ls" (where it makes a lot more sense to just execute a windows equivalent, at least in interactive use) and then somewhere someone was a bit to enthusiastic?

For stuff like this "weak" aliases which point you to the right command if it can't find an executable for it would have been a way better design. "No command with that name, you are likely looking for Invoke-WebRequest". Only slightly more work in interactive use, and safe in other cases.

[Pxtl]

Yes, but the dir/ls alias behaves nothing like it's counterparts, so it's actually confusing when you use dir or ls but none of the familiar usage works.

[hibbelig]

Just wanted to add my two cents here that I normally use `ls` on PowerShell (instead of `dir` or `get-childitem` or `gci`) because it seems expedient. (I come from a Unix background.)

Yes, it does confuse me that plain `ls` in PowerShell is more like `ls -l` on Unix, and this confusion sometimes causes me to type `ll` (my normal Unix alias for `ls -l`). But still, I prefer `ls` over `dir` in PowerShell.

So I guess I'm saying that I'm fine with some of the aliases. (But `curl` and `wget` should be removed, yes.)

[mcguire]

Hypothesis: The Windows world is a closed ecosystem. The developers and most of the users aren't familiar with any of the non-Windows systems. They were given a list of commands to map to the closest Powershell equivalent and made aliases for the basic functionality.

That is the only explanation I can see for why the would pick those commands.