As it is now, the permissions output by ls -l and the permissions required by chmod are in totally different formats. This is confusing and creates unnecessary potential for error.
A few years back on StackOverflow, user miku submitted this fantastic little tweak on ls:
try it:
ls -l | awk '{k=0;for(i=0;i<=8;i++)k+=((substr($1,i+2,1)~/[rwx]/) \
*2^(8-i));if(k)printf("%0o ",k);print}'
Doesn't that look nice? It's very helpful without making the output feel cluttered, and is much more useful for newer and intermediate users who have not internalized the correlation between the -rwxrwxr-x and three digit formats. In fact, it helps to teach this correlation, because when the three are put side by side like this, it's quite obvious how they relate to each other.
What if this was the default behaviour of ls -l, exactly as the output of that command looks?
Cheers,
Sasha Shepherd
Katoomba, Australia