Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dax – Cross-platform shell for Node.js

david.deno.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 26 posts

Re: Dax – Cross-platform shell for Node.js

#11

Post by tamimio »

xavdid wrote: post #3
stevage wrote: post #2

I'm loving the explosion of scripting tools for Node (and similar). There was basically nothing for ages. Then ZX come along and made scripting so much easier, and quickly has become indispensable for me. Now we have more choices and more innovation? Really exciting.

TIL about zx! https://github.com/google/zx This suite of tools feels indispensable. Anything to keep me from having to write/maintain bash scripts that are more than a series of commands.

Wow this looks pretty awesome, how come I never heard of it!? Thanks for sharing it!

Re: Dax – Cross-platform shell for Node.js

#12

Post by lioeters »

jxi wrote: post #4

Bun also has a shell: https://bun.sh/blog/the-bun-shell

It's mentioned in the article, and apparently Bun Shell was partly inspired by Dax. And zx, which inspired both.

I've been using zx for a couple years now, it's a handy all-in-one library. It's gradually replacing my Bash scripts, and I tend to reach for it for any new shell scripting needs. With Bun's fast startup time, it's also gradually replacing Node.js and zx.

Re: Dax – Cross-platform shell for Node.js

#15

Post by ludwigvan »

The biggest reason this needs to be integrated is that most people simplify won’t know about this tool. Only HackerNews reader in this thread and then some enthusiasts :)

So it would result in magnitudes of more usage if it was integrated, which seems to be the path Bun is taking.

Re: Dax – Cross-platform shell for Node.js

#19

Post by ikurei »

lenkite wrote: post #16

Just wonderful - between Dax, zx and bun-shell we have 3 different tools with near similar syntax pretty much doing the same thing. Until a winner emerges, its just best to stick to Python.

What happens if you pick Dax and a year later it's Bun-shell that emerges as "the winner"?

If you stick to Python until a winner emerges, how does that help you? You'd have some old scripts in python, and some new ones in WinnerJS, which I think it's worse than having some in WinnerJS and some in LoserJS.

Your LoserJS scripts won't stop working. At least Bun-shell and Dax scripts in the same language. Since Bun's got some inspiration from Dax, I'm sure the API won't be that different.

I'm usually not one to jump on new JS stuff, but writing scripts on any of these feels relatively low risk.

Also, I'm still maintaining code that uses the ORM-that-lost, and the Dates-library-we-don't-use-anymore, and it's OK.

Re: Dax – Cross-platform shell for Node.js

#20

Post by ikurei »

There was a time I was writing scripts using Node about once a week, and I settled on ShellJS. I don't remember loving the experience.

Haven't had this need in at least a year though. From looking on npmtrends[0], ShellJS still seems the incumbent and quite alive.

Are these new zx/dax/bun-shell tools, each inspired in the previous one, way better?

[0]: https://npmtrends.com/dax-vs-shelljs-vs-zx

Post reply on HN