I use ls -la via the ll alias exclusively. I find it far more readable to my eyes than plain ls.

Hidden files are almost always of interest to me since my job involves configuring servers.

https://github.com/c-blake/lc shows all files, including hidden files (starting with dot aka dot files) by default, suppressible in output with -xdot or a shell/internal alias to the same effect.

It helps to start with a more extensible/less built-in idea of "file type". "odd permissions" are another type that might interest someone, for example, such as "setgid but not group-executable" or "writable but not readable" or etc.

Yes, I know one can also use `find` or etc. for that, but there's no crime in there being >1 way to see things and, for some people, colors can make things really stand out - as can sort order which is another more color-blind possibility in `lc` as well as the simple filter-or-not of ls -a/-A.