Ask HN: Are alternative (oil, nu, etc.) shells usable as daily drivers?

I would probably turn that around and ask why are you asking?

Outside of command line editing features, some kind of completion, novelties, and prettiness, I think most of the time it always comes back to "I chose this shell due to syntax, or programming of some kind". e.g. tcsh due to the C-ness of it.

I am writing this from Linux, been using csh on Solaris and then bash on linux since, well since back then... I have seen a lot of shells come out, but every time I switch to one I think about my personal needs in the shell and portability (I do manage a large number of boxes, and most of them do not have extra items installed, including shells) so I end up back at bash/dash/sh.

Again, I would ask myself what you need in the shell. If ZSH or Fish or csh or ksh or some esoteric shell fit the bill, why not just try it as a daily driver? I mean, what is the worst possible outcome? (unless you make a living making life support shell driven software...)

oh-my-zsh on Linux is absolutely great, especially with autosuggestions and syntax-highlighting enabled.

On Windows I've settled with Windows Terminal and clink.

I've tried Powershell too but never got used to it. The concept where everything is an object sounds great. But in practice, to me it only is when scripting. When doing interactive work on the command line (which is what I do all day), as a human, nothing beats plain text for me. Enlighten me if this I missed the point of Powershell.

I am a fish fan… but even fish has some difficulties, as many scripts and tools in the wild expect a bash-compatible shell. Otherwise, it is excellent and I use it on my computers 100% of time.

I guess other alternative shells like nu have about the same level of usability. If you like them, you can use them.

I am still kinda bitter about mac os replacing the default bash with zsh. I gained nothing from that unwanted update, but got compatibility pains suddenly.

Is something is more complicated than a one-liner, use a real programming language instead, with proper building blocks, tooling and documentation. Use something like Go to crosscompile if you don't want to depend on something on the host machine.

In my experience, even very trivial short shell scripts over time tend to grow into a pain, that could totally be avoided when using a real language instead.

I use zsh, but even zsh is a bit long in the tooth.

I'm especially interested in daily interactive use.

I tried fish but it's a bit tricky in some contexts.

Powershell is a bit too alien in *NIX-land, even though I really like it's concepts.

nushell looks quite promising but it's still pre-1.0.