I'm surprised that one can't just type a directory name at the Unix prompt and have an implicit "cd" done. Directories are already marked "executable" and a check is already made by the shell to see if it's indeed a directory.
I'd change the behavior of bash to do that, but then the next upgrade, I'd have to go back and make the change *yet again* (which means I don't make the change—sigh).
Those are two good points: that would be a logical, consistent behaviour, and sometimes it pays to get used to a standard UI quirk rather than modifying it, because then you keep yourself more "UI install portable" (which is why I learn to efficiently use Windows as-is rather than modifying it to heck)
I always mean to try to find the shell alias that will run "more" or "ls" when I type "more" based on whether it's a plain file or directory...to me and my subconcious (what controls what I type) there's a clear map between the two...
Heh, further thought: counter-acting the "user friendly" ideal of accepting stuff like "cd.." without the space is the way type "cd c:\temp" when you're current drive is D: will change the working directory for C:, but not change where you're working. (There is "cd /d" for that, but you'd think it would make a better default at this point.)
One entry with a weather reference one day, the next day a Heisenberg joke. And people wonder why I like you!
I actually came to the UNIX shell third, after DOS and command-line FTP. (People *talked* about FTP clients in those days, but I'd never seen one.) FTP mostly uses cd followed by the space, but .. didn't work, as I recall-- it had its own command, "cdup".
Speaking of command line interfaces, I was fixing an iMac yesterday that, after an initial recovery attempt or two, dropped to a command-line interface. I have no idea what it was, because this iMac had been running OS9.4.2 or so, not X. Fortunately, someone had this problem before me, so "reset-nvram" was accepted, and, restarting thereafter produced the GUI (which was baffled by the hard drive, but that's a different story).