alt Hacker NewsIsn't this just an issue with rsync? (or rather your ancient version of it) I think you'd run into the same issues when using an IPv4 address port combination. It was rsync's choice to use colon as an indicator in lieu of IPv6's existence. You'd be complaining all the same for other separator choices if rsync just happened to pick the same one.
Nonetheless I do agree that the choice of colons isn't great due to how it ambiguates their meaning.
Absolutely it is. But still, the colons and brackets often make things awkward, leading not only to such compatibility bugs, but to general usability issues. Colons and brackets are just too overloaded within both destination specifiers (e.g. for ports, paths...) and shell syntax, and probably other things, where as the dot '.' rarely is.
I'm an avid user of IPv6 by the way, I don't share a lot of the criticism. For me personally it's a net positive. But this is a wart where I wish they went a different direction.