Advantage 1 of sym-link (transparency): Only management software has to know of the existence of sym-links. They just work. Shortcuts only work if the software trying to open them knows that they are a short cut.

Advantage 2 of sys-link (chainable): A sym-link will allow a link to a link to a link …

3: They are often stored in the inode (this may not always be true), making them quicker to look up.

Advantages of sym-links:

1. transparency: Only management software has to know of the existence of sym-links. They just work. Shortcuts only work if the software trying to open them knows that they are a short cut. Syn-links work for all software, including legacy software.

2. chain-able: A sym-link will allow a link to a link to a link …

3. quicker: They are often stored in the inode (this may not always be true), making them quicker to look up.

Disadvantages:

1. Additional meta-information can be stored in a short-cut.

2. File-system support is not needed.

3. Instead of updating your file-system, you update every single other program in the system, this allows you to sell people the software that they already have, but with short-cut support, thus increasing revenue. (this advantage relies on your users not being free, you must have licensed the software under a proprietary licence.)