Should I put shortcut(softlink?) on the desktop?

Most Windows users put shortcuts on the desktop. But on the Mac OS X, it has a dock, it seems to be doing the same thing.

By they way, on Unix systems, there are softlink and hardlink. If I drag an application to the desktop, will Mac OS X treat it as softlink or hardlink?

it will usually be treated as hardlink. If u want to create a shortcut, right click on the folder you want, and choose "alias". It's actually the other word for shortcut on the mac system

Okay, so the "alias" will be treated a hardlink on MacOS X?

Maybe you could explain the difference between a hardlink and softlink...