Yes? This is literally how every human in the world does it. You put your things, according to catrgories, into their respective room/cabinet. If somebody asks you where your sweaters are, you don't say "just search the ground", you say " in the closet".
Same thing here. You don't have to guess where files are, you know by convention.
Having a file manager set to see all dotfiles by default, is like ripping all the doors off your closets.
~/.programname is an unorganized mess, where someone stuff their dirty laundry, their trash, their food and their passport into the same closet. It doesn't matter if the closet is open or not, nobody but the mentally ill hoarder who created the mess can navigate it.
~/.(local|share|cache) means people put their food in the fridge, their trash into the bin and their sensitive documents in a fire proof safe. Which means other people can take care of basic tasks like taking out the trash and creating backups of their sensitive documents.
At least with the ~/.whatever system I can just start typing ~/.tool-name, hit tab and it'll show me the thing if it exists. If it's somewhere else I have to look it up.
- ~/.mozilla/firefox, but: ~/.thunderbird and ~/.pki/nssdb (gonna keep you on your toes!)
- Java defaults to .full.package.name (on top of using .java, .openjfx, and others)
- Fontconfig uses `fc-*` for its tools. Naturally, its config file used to be in ~/.fonts.conf.d before they finally accepted standard directories
- arandr, as the name implies, uses .screenlayout
- The sooner the .net ecosystem decides if it wants to use ~/.dotnet or ~/.mono, the better (humble suggestion: ~/..net)
This really only applies to badly ported Windows software like Unity engine games. There should be no hierarchy, just ~/.{local/share,config,etc.}/$application And nothing stops badly behaved software from deciding to use ~/.$CompanyName or heck I have even seen ~/My\ Documents/$CompanyName
I have a real filing cabinet. In it, I have folders.
I don't keep my backup car dongle in one folder, my car invoice in another, my warranty and info from dealer all in different folders. They're all in a folder with the car name on it.
The same for my fridge. The invoice, the manual, the warranty info, all in one folder.
It is much more disorganized to have a folder for manuals and put them all there. I have to find the one I want out of 50 such manuals. And if it is a warranty thing, then I need the invoice, and other papers.
Why would I want to keep associated things in different folders?!
You think it's a mess, but really it's not. It's organized for humans to find related things.
Before, I'd uninstall a program and delete its single dotdir. Done.
Now I have to hunt in a maze of madness to "get it all".
You cite some programs that didn't properly keep their data in a single dotdir, and use that as a reason why a single dotdir was bad?!
No. It's literally the other way around. It's bad that they keep everything in a single dotdir, because now I have to poke through dozens of folders to see where they hide their caches and other bloated garbage that shouldn't be backed up or kept in git, and where between all that garbage they're hiding their config files.
If all caches go to ~/.cache, I can exclude them all with a single setting, and I can put all my configurations in git/backups by adding ~/.config.
Same as with /var/tmp vs /etc vs /var/lib; if I want everything thrown together into a single folder I can just go use Windows.
If it was only one place it would be great. If it was truly separated by config vs cache it would be great. The reality know though is that you have at least three locations where important config are stored, not counting those from package managers that have their own idea of this concept. Still, this mess is preferable to the even worse mess of hundred plumbing files spread on the living room floor.