I wish there was a better way for the community to handle this situation without the original author doing what we see here. Sometimes the original author dies unexpectedly for example and it's very hard to salvage the work into a maintained fork. I wrote about this in 2018: https://kodare.net/2018/06/25/salvaging-abandoned-projects.h...
> it's very hard to salvage the work into a maintained fork. How is it hard? Just fork it.
Do read my article. I have a very clear example of why that actually doesn't work in practice.
There's a hint of a belief in this thread - common also in threads about alternative shells and Vim setups - that someone who uses a tool like this will irrevocably lose the knowledge of how to use ls. Am I perhaps a genius or is it just not that difficult to know two tools?
Most people don't type `ls` directly either. Aliases like `l`, `ll` and `la` are very common, in which case it really doesn't matter which tool you're using. I've been using `exa` for years, and my aliases work regardless if it's installed or not. I just get a better UX if it is.
> Most people don't type `ls` directly either. Aliases like `l`, `ll` and `la` are very common, in which case it really doesn't matter which tool you're using.
Huh. I always use plain ls with flags and deliberately unset aliases like ll.
I wish there was a better way for the community to handle this situation without the original author doing what we see here. Sometimes the original author dies unexpectedly for example and it's very hard to salvage the work into a maintained fork. I wrote about this in 2018: https://kodare.net/2018/06/25/salvaging-abandoned-projects.h...
There is, I created it years ago, but unfortunately it hasn't taken off: https://www.codeshelter.co/ Maybe I'm bad at marketing, it seems like a pity.
Hi. Just looking at the site. Under "adopted projects" you list Light Table. But the link just goes to the old, unmaintained repo. It would be great if you could also link to the maintained versions of repos.
I've been using LSD instead of Exa, so I'm lightly relieved that I don't have to change over. Both projects are amazing little utilities that when combined with a well-customized shell, really make using the terminal a joy. I absolutely love the trend of rewriting classic Unix utilities in rust, because the new tools often have (small or large) usability and quality of life improvements that altogether make the termi…
Exa was a nonstarter for me because only LSD supports Windows. Which is unfortunate, as this is a big advantage of the Rewrite It In Rust trend.
> I absolutely love the trend of rewriting classic Unix utilities I avoid them unless I'm capable of maintaining them myself. My primary reason for using classic Unix utilities is trusting that they'll still work in a few years. The initial stages of a rewrite can be a lot of fun, but I want to use it long after the excitement has worn off.
YMMV, but many of us find it easier to maintain rust + cargo than the old C + autotools mess.
FWIW, my mileage definitely varied: autotools--which is quite easy if you bother to learn how it works and is then almost infinitely flexible--has pretty much never failed me (I think there was one incident for a while related to building stuff for iOS? regardless this was fixed long ago), but I have had to file and participate in a number of bugs on cargo, most of which are still open :/, and I haven't even developed anything in Rust myself yet... I've merely tried to compile and use stuff other people wrote and run into myriad ridiculous problems.
And so will exa, probably. And if it won't, it will be forked. Which is exactly the reason "ls" is working perfectly fine for you today. The original AT&T UNIX "ls" has been forked over and over again and rewritten from scratch several times. You're using an evolved fork of this "ls" if you're using macOS or BSD, but if you're on Linux you're using a rewrite (GNU coreutils ls), and if you're running BusyBox you're us…
I am not anti-rewrite or anti-port. There exist good reasons to rewrite software. However, being "modern" is not a good reason. The gnu authors were not motivated to write the coreutils simply for the sake of modernity. And that is why their fork of ls has much greater staying power than all the "modern" forks.
Sometimes its just for fun.
I wouldn't install use exa on my CICD pipelines, but on my own machine? Sure. I like the pretty colors. If it breaks moving back to ls is fine.
Yet another example of why I don't trust any software that markets itself as "modern". In another 20 years, ls will still work perfectly fine.
And so will exa, probably. And if it won't, it will be forked. Which is exactly the reason "ls" is working perfectly fine for you today. The original AT&T UNIX "ls" has been forked over and over again and rewritten from scratch several times. You're using an evolved fork of this "ls" if you're using macOS or BSD, but if you're on Linux you're using a rewrite (GNU coreutils ls), and if you're running BusyBox you're us…
Vi is in POSIX, it has been open source since 2002, and some version of it truly is on every UNIX system.
There is, I created it years ago, but unfortunately it hasn't taken off: https://www.codeshelter.co/ Maybe I'm bad at marketing, it seems like a pity.
Hi. Just looking at the site. Under "adopted projects" you list Light Table. But the link just goes to the old, unmaintained repo. It would be great if you could also link to the maintained versions of repos.
The list has repos that Code Shelter has access to (ie ones that you can request to join). We don't have access to the new Light Table repo, so it wouldn't be apt to add there.
I've been using LSD instead of Exa, so I'm lightly relieved that I don't have to change over. Both projects are amazing little utilities that when combined with a well-customized shell, really make using the terminal a joy. I absolutely love the trend of rewriting classic Unix utilities in rust, because the new tools often have (small or large) usability and quality of life improvements that altogether make the termi…
There is, I created it years ago, but unfortunately it hasn't taken off: https://www.codeshelter.co/ Maybe I'm bad at marketing, it seems like a pity.
I think what we need is for github to get in on it. Discoverability is 90% of the work.
That's very true, but that's another chicken and egg problem. GitHub won't add you if you don't have the numbers (they'd just implement this themselves, if anything).