Re: My "Stop Using (and Teaching) C-Shell and Tcsh" Page

On Saturday 20 October 2007, Beni Cherniavsky wrote:
> On 10/19/07, Shlomi Fish <shlomif-ik1l9ssToec+JF/[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Friday 19 October 2007, Beni Cherniavsky wrote:
> > > But for those of us that find even {ba,z,k}sh unsatisfactory, I highly
> > > recommend trying the Friendly Interactive SHell
> > > <http://fishshell.org/>.  It fixes many things like quoting, innovates
> > > in configuration and has interactive syntax-higlighted
> > > multiline-editing completing-on-steroids prompt.
> >
> > My problem with FISH is that its syntax is incompatible with that of the
> > Bourne Shell, much less with bash. As such, I recommend people not to get
> > use it, for fear it will become the next csh/tcsh. I'd rather improve
> > bash or zsh in areas that one feels they need improvement, than create
> > something incompatible.
> >
> > So stay away.
>
> It won't become the next csh because it's not vastly inferior ;-).  It
> just as real a language as bash, only different.  Whether to use it or
> not is a pesonal decision, depending on whether one likes it, being an
> early adopter, etc.

It still may introduce bad habits when using Bash for scripts.

>
> Of course, as Nadav says, if somebody is going to learn just one
> shell, the only sensible recommendation is [ba]sh.

Right.

>
> > And I daresay I don't find bash unsatisfactory. I'm probably still using
> > a very small of its functionality, and it has many dark corners that I
> > haven't investigated yet. I still haven't even found enough motivation to
> > use zsh instead of bash.
>
> I find any shell following Bourne shell semantics of quoting and
> variable expansion inherently broken, because it takes too much hassle
> to write correct code.  IMMV.

Can you give some examples for that? And if so - how is FISH better?

>
> > And I'm still finding myself using Perl for many non-trivial scripting
> > problems.
>
> Obviously.  Command-line glue is just not flexible enough to compete
> with real data structures and interfaces that you find in a real
> language.  Also, shell scripts suffer from much higher software rot
> due to dependence on numerous external programs.

Well, there are standards defining a subset of the behaviour of such programs. 

>
> > I'd rather see the good FISH ideas integrated into bash.
>
> Some of them (mostly the interactive features) could, and probably
> should, be integrated.
> But the syntax improvements can't be sh-compatible, because it
> explicitly sets out fix sh syntax mistakes.

I see.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      shlomif-ik1l9ssToec+JF/[email protected]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

If it's not in my E-mail it doesn't happen. And if my E-mail is saying
one thing, and everything else says something else - E-mail will conquer.
    -- An Israeli Linuxer


 
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