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Stronger Shell

m.odul.us

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Re: Stronger Shell

#11

Post by barrkel »

realharo wrote: post #6

I personally can't stand bash for writing scripts (it's fine for typing one-liners into terminal though). This question and its top answer capture the insanity of bash quite nicely http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/how-to-check-if-a... .

Most bash scripts that I write are extended and more nicely formatted one-liners, packaged up with some help text and sanity checking for easier reuse. Rewriting in a completely different language rather than snipping out the already working text from the terminal seems a little pointless.

Your link doesn't really counteract this usage. Your stance seems to be a bit like giving up on writing Javascript because of the JS WAT video. All languages have weird corners; bash has more than most because it's so old, and has only reluctantly added real programming language features, but the better you know the programming language, the more you tend to use it on the terminal. And I spend most of my non-editor, non-browser time in the terminal.

I still write bash scripts in preference to Ruby or Python even in less trivial situations, especially when multiprocess orchestration of heterogeneous executables is involved.

Re: Stronger Shell

#12

Post by toothbrush »

david-given wrote: post #8
realharo wrote: post #6

I personally can't stand bash for writing scripts (it's fine for typing one-liners into terminal though). This question and its top answer capture the insanity of bash quite nicely http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/how-to-check-if-a... .

Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. (Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.) I've briefly looked at rc, but while it's significantly simpler and more orthogonal than sh it's got it's own weirdnesses; but the 'Design Principles' section here is worth reading: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/rc.html Surely there must be a usable shell wrapped around an actual modern…

> Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.

I'm curious as to why you say that? This is a naive question, i have no skin in the game.

Re: Stronger Shell

#13

Post by useerup »

david-given wrote: post #8
realharo wrote: post #6

I personally can't stand bash for writing scripts (it's fine for typing one-liners into terminal though). This question and its top answer capture the insanity of bash quite nicely http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/how-to-check-if-a... .

Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. (Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.) I've briefly looked at rc, but while it's significantly simpler and more orthogonal than sh it's got it's own weirdnesses; but the 'Design Principles' section here is worth reading: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/rc.html Surely there must be a usable shell wrapped around an actual modern…

> Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler.

Yes, PowerShell. And it may actually arrive at Linux/Unix soon, due to CoreCLR. The specification is already open, but until now not much progress has been made towards bringing it uncrippled to Linux/Unix

PowerShell is extremely consistent. Examples: All commands are strictly on the verb-noun form where there are only 40 or so "approved" verbs. Noun represent the topic, so if you are working with ACLs, the commands are Get-Acl, Set-Acl, and if you are working with network network adapters, the commands are Disable-NetAdapter, Enable-NetAdapter, Get-NetAdapter, Rename-NetAdapter, Restart-NetAdapter, Set-NetAdapter. All (PowerShell) commands require the parameters in the same way (no - and -- confusion) as it is actually the shell that does the parameter parsing.

The grammar is "modern" so it has no surprises for anyone used to context-free grammars (like C, Python, Java, ...).

PowerShell is certainly flexible as it comes with the ability to invoke anything that has an exposed .NET API, or even has a WBEN/CIM standard interface (like some network switches etc).

Re: Stronger Shell

#14

Post by david-given »

toothbrush wrote: post #12
david-given wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. (Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.) I've briefly looked at rc, but while it's significantly simpler and more orthogonal than sh it's got it's own weirdnesses; but the 'Design Principles' section here is worth reading: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/rc.html Surely there must be a usable shell wrapped around an actual modern…

> Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified. I'm curious as to why you say that? This is a naive question, i have no skin in the game.

zsh is really powerful and flexible, but it does so by being really, really complicated --- it's basically taking bash and turning all the weirdness and bizarity up to 11. It's an uber-bash, which is very much the opposite of what I'm looking for.

Re: Stronger Shell

#15

Post by _yy »

david-given wrote: post #8
realharo wrote: post #6

I personally can't stand bash for writing scripts (it's fine for typing one-liners into terminal though). This question and its top answer capture the insanity of bash quite nicely http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/how-to-check-if-a... .

Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. (Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.) I've briefly looked at rc, but while it's significantly simpler and more orthogonal than sh it's got it's own weirdnesses; but the 'Design Principles' section here is worth reading: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/rc.html Surely there must be a usable shell wrapped around an actual modern…

There's fish: http://fishshell.com/

Also, a nice experiment: http://xonsh.org/ (Bash-alike with embedded Python)

Re: Stronger Shell

#16

Post by klibertp »

toothbrush wrote: post #12
david-given wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. (Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.) I've briefly looked at rc, but while it's significantly simpler and more orthogonal than sh it's got it's own weirdnesses; but the 'Design Principles' section here is worth reading: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/rc.html Surely there must be a usable shell wrapped around an actual modern…

> Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified. I'm curious as to why you say that? This is a naive question, i have no skin in the game.

Zsh is largely compatible with bash's quirks, and then layers lots of weird things of its own on top of that. ZSH is a great, very powerful shell which I use and enjoy, but it's not any of: "simple", "consistent", "fast" or "lightweight".

Re: Stronger Shell

#17

Post by nimrody »

useerup wrote: post #13
david-given wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. (Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.) I've briefly looked at rc, but while it's significantly simpler and more orthogonal than sh it's got it's own weirdnesses; but the 'Design Principles' section here is worth reading: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/rc.html Surely there must be a usable shell wrapped around an actual modern…

> Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. Yes, PowerShell. And it may actually arrive at Linux/Unix soon, due to CoreCLR. The specification is already open, but until now not much progress has been made towards bringing it uncrippled to Linux/Unix PowerShell is extremely consistent. Examples: All commands are strictly on the verb-noun form where there are only 40 or so "a…

Can you recommend a resource for learning powershell? (Assuming one has UNIX background)

[it does generate annoyingly long error messages!]

Re: Stronger Shell

#18

Post by agentultra »

_yy wrote: post #15
david-given wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a better shell? By which I mean more flexible, more consistent, and simpler. (Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified.) I've briefly looked at rc, but while it's significantly simpler and more orthogonal than sh it's got it's own weirdnesses; but the 'Design Principles' section here is worth reading: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/rc.html Surely there must be a usable shell wrapped around an actual modern…

There's fish: http://fishshell.com/ Also, a nice experiment: http://xonsh.org/ (Bash-alike with embedded Python)

I second fish. I've been using it as my primary shell for more than a few years now.

The syntax is better than bash and familiar to those who've done programming in languages like Ruby or Python.

The line editor is actually useful. It handles indentation and highlighting. It will display an appropriate help page if you mess up some command.

It comes bundled with argument completion for most common Unix tools and is easy to extend for other programs.

    for file in (ls /home/me/mp3s);
        echo $file;
    end
It will also highlight incomplete paths, bad syntax, etc, as you type. I know at a glance if I messed up a path or misspelled a program name.

Really useful shell.

Re: Stronger Shell

#19

Post by useerup »

david-given wrote: post #14
toothbrush wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who says 'zsh' is disqualified. I'm curious as to why you say that? This is a naive question, i have no skin in the game.

zsh is really powerful and flexible, but it does so by being really, really complicated --- it's basically taking bash and turning all the weirdness and bizarity up to 11. It's an uber-bash, which is very much the opposite of what I'm looking for.

> it's basically taking bash and turning all the weirdness and bizarity up to 11

While I certainly understand where you are coming from, I have found that zsh may be more complicated, but less "weird" (i.e. it is more consistent)

However, zsh is tons of tons of special cases that may be mostly consistent, but without any clear concept which would allow you to remember or deduce solutions. When you are a zsh wizard you can be really productive, but it is a strange skillset that takes time to achieve and require constant refresh.

IMHO the closest thing zsh has to a "concept" is that if it takes too many characters, then there's probably a special case which - if you knew it - could solve the problem in a shorter form.

Re: Stronger Shell

#20

Post by realharo »

barrkel wrote: post #11
realharo wrote: post #6

I personally can't stand bash for writing scripts (it's fine for typing one-liners into terminal though). This question and its top answer capture the insanity of bash quite nicely http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/how-to-check-if-a... .

Most bash scripts that I write are extended and more nicely formatted one-liners, packaged up with some help text and sanity checking for easier reuse. Rewriting in a completely different language rather than snipping out the already working text from the terminal seems a little pointless. Your link doesn't really counteract this usage. Your stance seems to be a bit like giving up on writing Javascript because of the…

I mostly just have a problem with the default behavior of ignoring errors and continuing (yes I know it can be overridden). This coupled with the fact that you'll be working almost exclusively with strings, and all the quoting and escaping rules (which can be a huge pain themselves), can easily lead to bugs like this one https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 .

I have written some bash scripts myself, but none that were longer than maybe 10-20 lines. Above that, I usually reach for other tools.

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