Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink?

[Jerry Hill]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 2:34 PM, HoneyMonster <someone at someplace.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:24:23 -0500, Jerry Hill wrote:
>> It's not two files, it's a hardlink.  You can confirm by running ls -li
>> python* and comparing the inode numbers.
>
> You are spot on. Thank you, and sorry for my stupidity.

I don't think you're stupid.  It's hard to tell the difference between
two separate files with the same file size and a hardlink.  The
biggest clue is the number "2" in the second column.  If I recall
correctly, for directories, that's the number of entries in the
directory.  For files, that number is the number of hardlinks
referring to that file.

Even with that, it's hard to tell what files are hardlinked together,
and figuring it out by inode is a pain in the neck.  Personally, I
prefer symlinks, even if they introduce a small performance hit.
Readability counts, even in the filesystem.

-- 
Jerry