> CFI

They're referring to Control Flow Integrity [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control-flow_integrity

> So that in any directory you can type `<command name>`?

Any tool installed via asdf is available on any directory as long as you are accessing that directory via a shell spawned with a .profilerc or similar which contains your asdf configuration.

> asdf Node installs aren't like Python virtual environments

Correct, neither should they be.

> they're centrally installed and one Node version (and its packages) is shared across all diretories

sure, they are, and that's by design. You're conflating a runtime manager with a package manager. Venvs are _not_ runtime manager, the moment you need another Python version you're done for. asdf.vm is _not_ a package manager, the moment you want package isolation while working on an asdf install is the moment you install yourself pipenv, poetry, pdm or use python venvs for that.

> that want it + global tools.

which is achieved as I've shown below. Still, there was no reason in your usecase to modify or play with globally installed tools besides asdf, through which you can then define global runtime versions and those global versions will hold your global tools, usable wherever.

> pyenv + pip tools

then you'd also need rbenv, nvm, etc.

and pyenv can implode in marvelous ways.

> Why would I want/need this?

always, golang is overly opinionated regarding where modules and binaries are stored. I don't like that and I've blown my local development environment into pieces because of that (looking at you GRPC, yikes)

But also, imagine that you, like me, need to test Python, Java+Kotlin+Gradle and NodeJS+Angular stuff. Do you really want to install _all that_ natively ? Just for a couple of merge reviews, and even if not, do you _really_ want to install all that natively ? The answer is always, IMHO, a resounding and clear no.

> It was a Visual Basic 6 program, so I just took two half days going through every EXE & DLL related to Windows and VB, eventually finding the difference. Tedious but not rocket science. Is it to avoid these cases?

For example, but also much worst, as mentioned in the OP it's to prevent the very real possibility of crippling your OS's language runtimes and also to stay productive.

there's something I don't get, why do you have globally installed tools that asdf can manage at the same time that you have asdf installed?