I'd guess they started with stuff like "ls" (where it makes a lot more sense to just execute a windows equivalent, at least in interactive use) and then somewhere someone was a bit to enthusiastic?
For stuff like this "weak" aliases which point you to the right command if it can't find an executable for it would have been a way better design. "No command with that name, you are likely looking for Invoke-WebRequest". Only slightly more work in interactive use, and safe in other cases.
Yes, but the dir/ls alias behaves nothing like it's counterparts, so it's actually confusing when you use dir or ls but none of the familiar usage works.
Just wanted to add my two cents here that I normally use `ls` on PowerShell (instead of `dir` or `get-childitem` or `gci`) because it seems expedient. (I come from a Unix background.)
Yes, it does confuse me that plain `ls` in PowerShell is more like `ls -l` on Unix, and this confusion sometimes causes me to type `ll` (my normal Unix alias for `ls -l`). But still, I prefer `ls` over `dir` in PowerShell.
So I guess I'm saying that I'm fine with some of the aliases. (But `curl` and `wget` should be removed, yes.)
Hypothesis: The Windows world is a closed ecosystem. The developers and most of the users aren't familiar with any of the non-Windows systems. They were given a list of commands to map to the closest Powershell equivalent and made aliases for the basic functionality.
That is the only explanation I can see for why the would pick those commands.
For stuff like this "weak" aliases which point you to the right command if it can't find an executable for it would have been a way better design. "No command with that name, you are likely looking for Invoke-WebRequest". Only slightly more work in interactive use, and safe in other cases.