[brigandish]

As a defence of hardcoded paths might go, I could've done better myself. What else from your OS 30 years ago might you keep just because it's 30+ years old?

[ajsnigrutin]

I keep it because it's worked for 30 years without issues and it's still working. Must you always replace something, just because a newer thing is "out there"? On the other hand, this is hackernews, and rewriting everything, from a text editor to a file browser, into a <language of the week> (ruby, go, rust,...) is a thing.

[Jorengarenar]

Or perhaps Bash for 30 years was using a sub-optimal solution and now when a better approach has emerged it just stubbornly refuses to adapt?

[brigandish]

Try moving all of those directories and files somewhere else that you would prefer and then see which programs break, which apps and libraries won't install, and then wonder why hardcoding is something the devs for these projects cling to.