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I find myself wanting to type .. instead of cd .. a lot, so I created an alias for it in one my of my shells. It works as expected, and it doesn't seem to break basic cd and ls usage.

Is doing this a bad idea?

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Is it a bad idea? Only in the sense that you're looking for a shortcut to counter carelessness instead of developing better habits. – John Gardeniers Oct 20 '10 at 2:45
Good point. At first I thought that something so simple wouldn't ruin me, but it probably will. Thanks. – Jeremy Heiler Oct 20 '10 at 3:05
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It won't break anything, but aliasing something as basic as cd .. might lead to bad habits. Really, you're better off training your fingers to do the right thing.

Also, what happens when you move to a new system, or get a new job, or need to maintain 1000 systems. You'll need to alias .. again, which can be a pain.

Many of us have done that in the past with other aliases, and learned that this was a bad idea, sometimes through a harsh experience.

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Which is why I tend to not use aliases in general. Thanks for the reminder. – Jeremy Heiler Oct 20 '10 at 3:03
I use aliases for long or hard to remember commands, but I create new names for the aliases so that they don't interfere with existing aliases. – Stefan Lasiewski Oct 20 '10 at 3:29
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up vote 2 down vote

Nothing uses .. as a command, so this is acceptable.

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up vote 1 down vote

Is doing this a bad idea?

Yes

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When you go on other systems, you'll instinctively type '..' instead of 'cd ..' because of the bad habit. – Beaming Mel-Bin Oct 20 '10 at 3:06
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