This is the weirdest spell in the game.

It would be cool if a bunch of spellcasters used this to shelter a town from a orc/goblin raid.

You'd have to be kind of crazy to use this as a short rest. The duration is 1 hour, so you need to get into it straight away otherwise enemies will ambush you and stop your short rest when it pops.

There's also nothing stopping enemies from following you up there.

How about using a very short rope, like 6". It would basically create an inter-dimensional hideout at ground level, isolating the caster from any goings-on outside without requiring any climbing. Could be useful to immediately escape a melee situation with low HP and get a short rest or opportunity to heal.

Could Snare + Rope Trick be used to set up a pretty nasty trap? If the snare is directly below the opening of the extradimensional space, the party can wait inside and drag somebody up into the hole via the rope they're dangling from.

Can this become a Mortal Kombat fatality move? 😏🤭😈

Tie a noose in the rope, grapple the baddie and cast this hang them

******* Ruthless

ps: would that actually work?

How is it "crazy?"

Why wouldn't you just get in it within a few seconds after casting it? Are you casting this surrounded by enemies? Is your DM so adversarial that as soon as you announce that you're casting this spell, a group of goblins rounds the corner?

Also, everyone here is getting to lost in the "game" of it and forgetting that to complete a short rest, you don't need to lie motionless in the same place for 1 hour:  "A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds." Taking a few steps is not strenuous. Just make the rope less than 60 feet—say, 1 inch taller than the tallest party member—and you'd barely be climbing at all. If your DM rules that climbing the rope for less than 6 seconds interrupts your short rest, they're missing the point of this spell by a mile. It might as well say "safe short rest" on the name.

If you have to work this hard to justify a usage, then it certainly isn't "the point of the spell"!

It lasts for an hour. A short rest takes an hour. It's the first thing anyone should think of with this spell. If your DM says your short rest was interrupted because you spent less than 12 seconds climbing up and down a rope at a leisurely pace, your DM is being far too harsh.

Sorcerer Extended spell gets you a short rest and more time :p

If a genie-warlock enters it with their vessel on them, is that another bag of holding bomb?  

Quote from norishiuido >>

You'd have to be kind of crazy to use this as a short rest. The duration is 1 hour, so you need to get into it straight away otherwise enemies will ambush you and stop your short rest when it pops.

There's also nothing stopping enemies from following you up there.

 People aren't suggesting you cast it mid-combat and take a short rest. It's more like, you're in a cave/dungeon/lair/etc and want to short rest before you keep moving without being caught by a patrol.

The space is invisible (extradimensional in fact, so an enemy can't just bump into it because it doesn't physically exist to them), so enemies cannot just wait to ambush you unless they literally saw you go up there. An enemy walking by would have no idea, so they could not wait for an ambush.

There is something stopping enemies from following you up, as it's literally in the spell text that you can pull the rope up behind you, leaving them with no way to enter.

Quote from Tetraplasm >>

It lasts for an hour. A short rest takes an hour. It's the first thing anyone should think of with this spell. If your DM says your short rest was interrupted because you spent less than 12 seconds climbing up and down a rope at a leisurely pace, your DM is being far too harsh.

 Yeah. And on top of that, if your DM is being aggressively adversarial, you could rules-lawyer them back by casting it only a few feet off the ground. But tbh if you're in this kind of campaign where you have to argue over extremely pedantic things, just quit.

Rules lawyer: A short rest is interrupted by strenuous activity. The spell ending is not strenuous, because if you put it just 1-9 feet off the ground, you don't even take fall damage when it ends. You declare your short rest starts 1 minute after casting, and then 59 minutes later you either step down from the invisible ledge or fall to the ground, neither of which is a strenuous activity because gravity is doing all the work. You are exerting no extraneous effort and nothing more is happening to you than it would if you hopped out of a hammock.

Quote from Krodothlhren >>

How does this spell work when it comes in contact with a bag of holding?

Exactly what you are implying. The Bag of Holding says this:

Placing a bag of holding inside an extradimensional space created by a handy haversack, portable hole or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The gate originates where the one item was placed inside the other. Any creature within 10 feet of the gate is sucked through it to a random location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way only and can't be reopened.

If you unwittingly climb into the extradimensional space created by Rope Trick with your trusty bag of holding at your side, you turn your possible short rest into a REALLY long one, after the rest of the party beats you to death for your stupidity.

Unfortunately, that's the kind of thing that nobody usually thinks about, something that the DM might overlook it, or the player might until it's too late. Although I never played 3.5 (please don't kill me), I believe it actually used to have a warning label on this spell: "Note: It is hazardous to create an extradimensional space within an existing extradimensional space or to take an extradimensional space into an existing one." The 5e description above explicitly says "extradimensional space" four times, as if they were saying, "Let's see if they figure this one out."

short rest in a dungeon...

Order of Scribe's free scroll creation ftw. You are now a Warlock's and Battle Master's best friend (and any other classes that can benefit from a short rest).

Placing a bag of holding inside an extradimensional space created by a handy haversack, portable hole or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The gate originates where the one item was placed inside the other. Any creature within 10 feet of the gate is sucked through it to a random location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way only and can't be reopened.

Boldness for my emphasis. Bag of holding is fine with spells like this, as it specifically is calling out items that create extra-dimensional spaces. 

Tie a bag of holding to one end of 30ft rope.

Run underneath large enemy e.g. Storm giant.

Cast rope trick

Storm giant now in astral plane :-)

Quote from Flamingcamel >>

Tie a bag of holding to one end of 30ft rope.

Run underneath large enemy e.g. Storm giant.

Cast rope trick

Storm giant now in astral plane :-)

 As the post immediately above yours points out, this does NOT work.  Bag of Holding interacts that way with ITEMS that create extradimensional spaces.

Can you touch a really short rope, could you essentially create a 1-hour safe space?

What if you do this during battle and the enemy destroys the rope after seeing you climb up it??