There's 4DOS descendent Take Command: https://jpsoft.com/
+1 for Take Command. I've used it since its mid-90s iteration, and still use it nearly every day. It has a great mix of command prompt features and batch file language enhancements.
Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
11–20 of 23 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#12I personally don't count powershell as a shell, it's more like an interpreted/jit compiled .net interactive CLI 'shell', hence why it is slow to start and to run A shell is a program that takes your commands and send them to the OS, it doesn't compile anything
a shell is what you type your commands into. a shell interprets those commands, pipes between them, and to and from file handles, and acts as the interface between the human and the things they want to do.
bash is FAR slower than PowerShell, and it's interpreted.
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#13You can get Linux shells and environments in Windows via WSL https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
Yep, WSL is the way to go, specifically WSL2 if you want more IO performance. Very convenient on my work laptop where I can't replace the OS.
bash, zsh, ksh, etc., those aren't shells for Windows, though, are they?
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, WSL is the way to go, specifically WSL2 if you want more IO performance. Very convenient on my work laptop where I can't replace the OS.
bash, zsh, ksh, etc., those aren't shells for Windows , though, are they?
WSL makes it possible, you can interact with the Linux and Windows filesystems interchangeably
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#15There's Yori
http://www.malsmith.net/yori/
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, WSL is the way to go, specifically WSL2 if you want more IO performance. Very convenient on my work laptop where I can't replace the OS.
bash, zsh, ksh, etc., those aren't shells for Windows , though, are they?
The distinction is kind of meaningless. If you want an extensible shell in windows you're either using powershell (which I have come to quite like) or you can use any of the Linux shells that exist via WSL. Native shells just were not a thing for the longest time as the type of user that wanted that tended to go to Linux.
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#17Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#18[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#19I personally don't count powershell as a shell, it's more like an interpreted/jit compiled .net interactive CLI 'shell', hence why it is slow to start and to run A shell is a program that takes your commands and send them to the OS, it doesn't compile anything
a shell is what you type your commands into. a shell interprets those commands, pipes between them, and to and from file handles, and acts as the interface between the human and the things they want to do. bash is FAR slower than PowerShell, and it's interpreted.
> bash is FAR slower than PowerShell, and it's interpreted.
That's not true at all
I have a demonstration that's very telling:
time pwsh
time bash
It's sad that nowadays people do not understand the purpose of a shell
Re: Ask HN: Are there no shells for Windows other than PowerShell and CMD?
#20There's plenty. Do more research.
- WSL -> Bash (Best, IMHO)
- Cygwin (old, slow IMHO)
- Git Bash (essentially includes bash for windows with a bunch of the more popular add-ons.
But, PowerShell is a pretty great shell, too. Make sure you're running the latest 7.x version, as it's improved tons.