Not sure I understand this problem. I just put my bin directory at the front of $PATH rather than the end. To browse my commands, I simply `ls ~/bin`.
Pick your poison
The danger is also mitigated because I only modify my own user's shell rc file. Any daemons running as root or their own user are unaffected.
POTENTIALLY. This (for me, anyway), is a solution in search of a problem. Been using some sort of *nix since the early 90's, writing scripts and commands and aliases and functions the whole time - this has never once happened to me.
It obviously _can_, and PROBABLY has, to some. But it's more a "can" than "will". Maybe I just name my homebrew stuff in a way that's unlikely to collide, dunno.
if a tool looks up a command name "x" given to it, it just takes $PATH and goes through it. the same $PATH as in your shell when you call "x" directly.
thinking more about it, you must thought something like putting "@daily mycommand ..." in crontab, then being annoyed by it not finding your command. then the problem is not that some tools expecting a "system path", but that some tools being defiant and overrides inherited path on their own accord. which is totally unneccessary: environment is called environment because it is prepared for you (the given program) to run in.
I'm not on the comma train here because it makes the name ugly and confusing, and doesn't solve any problem that I have. But it is a clever hack for those who do have this problem.
I forget names all the time. I even forget I wrote entire projects sometimes. That's why I try to organise my systems in a way I can easily stumble upon things I haven't thought about in months, or years.
I find this article's approach actually solves a problem for me. I do find myself going back to the ~/bin folder once I a while to look for some script I use less often. So at least for N=2, it's a cool hack.
~/bin<tab><tab>
</s> :)