Is there some reason that a filesystem couldn't be written to permit multiple paths to the same file without the clunkiness of sym links?
File systems can technically break all of these; files can contain multiple files within themselves with many file systems, the ability to have multiple paths leading to the same file means that if you just have the file in hand you don't have a unique path, which also means that if you remove that name it doesn't mean you've removed the file. But most of the time, you can kinda get away with writing normal code and it'll do the right thing. But that last one really burns. It is really easy to write code assuming file systems are just trees, and in particular can't have infinite loops, and be wrong about that.
if i want to really remove it, i can scrub the contents without removing the hardlink, and if i want to delete after scrubbing i check the hardlink count and search for the remaining entries.
Sometimes you might want that behavior, but other times you might not. But there’s no option in any app I’ve seen to choose how to handle hardlinks on edit/save.
fortunately in my case this issue is not a problem. i use hardlinks mainly for pictures where i never want to replace the original anyways, so editing always gets me a copy which i don't need to link to multiple places.
* Yes there are hard links, but the single hierarchy means that unless you memorised the specific FS of each folder, it's gonna be hard.