None of the tools the author mentions as following XDG, actually follow XDG. No default tools shipped with macOS place files under .config or anything like that. There is a bunch of dotfile vomit in $HOME and that's it. Every tool that uses .config is one you manually install from an external source.
The XDG spec is to coordinate the userspace of Linux software, meaning both CLI apps and windowed apps. Linux needs things called standards because Linus has not bothered to write them down himself, so there is no equivalent of Microsoft telling you data goes in AppData and Apple telling you data goes in Library. Identifying it as a standard for CLI tools across OSes is just wrong.
When CLI tools do this on macOS, it is not because anyone thought 'this is a standard for macOS', it is because they thought 'with -target darwin I don't get any compilation errors. ship it!' and frequently use those locations on Windows too where they don't make any kind of sense at all.
The standardized location is Library. If you do not expect it, that is on you; you should expect it, as it is the standardized location. It is only just now that people are starting to catch up with it, instead of blind ports with absolute minimum macOS-specific code, because of libraries like `dirs` which make it easy.
> [...] Linus has not bothered to write them down himself [...]
He's a kernel hacker and a technical leader. He doesn't write specs for the userspace, that's the least of his concerns. Linux has very strong guarantees on syscall backwards compat - Go doesn't even use libc. This is all by design.
Even the name "GNU/Linux" was something FSF tried to impose on distributions. The distributions being distributions, were free to brand themselves as they willed, which is 100% fair under the license terms.
This ecosystem has always been a bazaar, if that's not for you - use a BSD. (e.g. macOS.)
This is not a judgment. It is simply a fact. Linux uses cross-distribution standards, because of this fact; these standards should not be misidentified as cross-platform standards - which I believe TFA was doing - as that's not the purpose they exist for.
Except for Zsh (~/.zshrc), SSH (~/.ssh/config), Vim (~/.vimrc), Curl (~/.curlrc), Git (~/.gitconfig). Apple could have chosen to patch these and move the configuration files into ~/Library if they really wanted.
Apple rarely edits how big open source tools work in such a blunt way. I am not saying these tools' behavior is blessed by Apple. I'm just saying that TFA's assertion that 'these tools use .config so it's already standard' is not true - they don't. Unless you are saying that Apple is endorsing dotfile vomit outside of any particular folder.
Apple is quite happy to patch & extend stuff. Their ssh-add(1) accepts --apple-use-keychain, --apple-load-keychain; vanilla OpenSSH doesn't even know what long flags are.
I think it's entirely OK for long-established programs to adhere to their conventions; it's less surprising for the users. If you're going to change how things work, do so with minimum impact on the UI.
It will load config from there, if you manually create it there. If on a freshly initialized system you say `git config --global push.autoSetupRemote true`, it will write it to .gitconfig; it will not use .config unprompted.
What, there are other OSes that are not Linux? But why would you use them, just use Linux instead? Okay, fine, we'll pretend they're kinda Linux anyway and build the binaries for you. "Wrong paths"? Okay, patch it yourself then or something, idgaf about your weird non-Linux.
...seems to be a rather popular attitude between mainly-Linux based developers. I get it that it's easier to just read/write from/to "C:\etc\ssh\ssh_config" or "%HOME%\.dotfiles_are_cool_do_you_think_dotfiles_are_cool_no_I_will_not_set_hidden_attribute_on_it_why_would_I" but sometimes it's a bit jarring. Especially when the app doesn't work when placed inside a "Program Files" folder because it has spaces in the path.
The XDG spec is to coordinate the userspace of Linux software, meaning both CLI apps and windowed apps. Linux needs things called standards because Linus has not bothered to write them down himself, so there is no equivalent of Microsoft telling you data goes in AppData and Apple telling you data goes in Library. Identifying it as a standard for CLI tools across OSes is just wrong.
When CLI tools do this on macOS, it is not because anyone thought 'this is a standard for macOS', it is because they thought 'with -target darwin I don't get any compilation errors. ship it!' and frequently use those locations on Windows too where they don't make any kind of sense at all.
The standardized location is Library. If you do not expect it, that is on you; you should expect it, as it is the standardized location. It is only just now that people are starting to catch up with it, instead of blind ports with absolute minimum macOS-specific code, because of libraries like `dirs` which make it easy.