rm command

Raised as a usability problem by 9 people on Hacker News over 12 years (2013–2024), in 7 threads.

People raised many different problems with rm command, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 9 complaints

Confusing whether delete or remove sends files to trash or deletes them permanently2024-02-20
Permanent deletion by default makes mistakes easy and hard to undo2020-10-18
Accidentally deleted files are hard to recover, with no easy undo2016-04-21
Users habitually add -f to skip prompts, so deletions happen without any check2016-04-14
Prompting for every file makes batch deletion annoying, so users habitually add -f2016-04-14
Confirmation prompt on every deletion is so intrusive users learn to answer y blindly2015-01-16
Easy to erase important files by mistake with rm2014-05-28
Irreversible default deletion makes accidental data loss easy for interactive users2013-07-30
Permanent delete with a quick keystroke makes it easy to remove the wrong file2013-07-30