4 ms·

Call me old. But I want my shell to be a tight binary, preferably distributed (at some point) by major distros. This needs freakin' Node.js. I'm more looking

by cies 9y ago

Call me old. But I want my shell to be a tight binary, preferably distributed (at some point) by major distros. This needs freakin' Node.js. I'm more looking in the Rust/Haskell/OCaml direction for a hip bash/zsh replacement.

cies 9y ago
Looking back, I'd like to add Go to the list. (Not that I consider it hip, probably the least hip on the list. But well suited for writing a shell I guess.)
gigavinyl 9y ago
Couldn't agree more with you on that one. Hell, even common lisp on sbcl would be better.
baldfat 9y ago
Racket's RaSH is heading there. I have to say I have been using BASH, SED and AWK less. They are great tools but in the end it is getting easier and easier to get things done with a Macro in Racket for me.
- masukomi 9y ago
  what are you thoughts about not being able to share your nifty shell hacks with others? (because so few use RaSH)
  - baldfat 9y ago
    Not worried. If that was everyone's thoughts we all would be using Perl, Java and PHP :)
sillysaurus3 9y ago
This needs freakin' Node.js. Yeah, that's an old sentiment. I used to echo the same thing, but it's worth coming to terms with the fact that node is a pretty good platform to build on.
- cies 9y ago
  Could not agree less. It's not totally bad, but for sure not good. I prefer: * compile to native binaries * many ways to do concurrency (instead of async all the way) * a serious language (not created-in-10-days JS) Node is really step back for me, coming from Ruby and the JVM.
  - giantsloth 9y ago
    JavaScript looks nothing like the “created in 10 days” version to which you speak. I would highly suggest you take an uncomfirmation(?) biased look at the language as it is now. Asyncs simplicity is arguably a reason why it’s a good platform to build off of. I agree I would rather have a single binary, and node may not be the best platform for shells on this point.
    - cies 9y ago
      > JavaScript looks nothing like the “created in 10 days” version to which you speak. It has improved, sure. But not only in the direction that makes me happy. But you cannot undo some bad design choices, without it becoming a different language. > I would highly suggest [...] I write JS at times. It hurts badly. Not everyone feels it. Maybe coming from PHP or Perl it does not even hurt that much. But after writing some Haskell and Elm lately, the pain got more intense. > Asyncs simplicity is arguably a reason why it’s a good platform to build off of. Not having choices is never a good thing in my book. And I do not think that JS does async particularly well. So much line noise when it comes to working with promises. No fan here.
      - masukomi 9y ago
        i'm with you @cies JS has had some of its edges smoothed out but it's not a great language and its answer to parallelism and concurrency is crap IMNSHO. And i'm someone who came from perl way back in the day.
      - yellowapple 9y ago
        "Maybe coming from PHP or Perl" I don't know about PHP (my experience with it is limited), but coming from Perl, Perl is a breath of fresh air in comparison. Then again, to me Haskell makes even the worst JAPH-style Perl one-liners look readable in comparison, so maybe I'm not the best judge of language design.
masukomi 9y ago
on a related note there's Upterm https://github.com/railsware/upterm https://github.com/railsware/upterm which is a terminal emulator in node. I've found it pretty sucky for running fish shell in but i think it's ok for bash and zsh

by cies 9y ago

cies 9y ago

Looking back, I'd like to add Go to the list. (Not that I consider it hip, probably the least hip on the list. But well suited for writing a shell I guess.)

gigavinyl 9y ago

Couldn't agree more with you on that one. Hell, even common lisp on sbcl would be better.

baldfat 9y ago

Racket's RaSH is heading there. I have to say I have been using BASH, SED and AWK less. They are great tools but in the end it is getting easier and easier to get things done with a Macro in Racket for me.

masukomi 9y ago
what are you thoughts about not being able to share your nifty shell hacks with others? (because so few use RaSH)
- baldfat 9y ago
  Not worried. If that was everyone's thoughts we all would be using Perl, Java and PHP :)

sillysaurus3 9y ago

This needs freakin' Node.js. Yeah, that's an old sentiment. I used to echo the same thing, but it's worth coming to terms with the fact that node is a pretty good platform to build on.

cies 9y ago
Could not agree less. It's not totally bad, but for sure not good. I prefer: * compile to native binaries * many ways to do concurrency (instead of async all the way) * a serious language (not created-in-10-days JS) Node is really step back for me, coming from Ruby and the JVM.
- giantsloth 9y ago
  JavaScript looks nothing like the “created in 10 days” version to which you speak. I would highly suggest you take an uncomfirmation(?) biased look at the language as it is now. Asyncs simplicity is arguably a reason why it’s a good platform to build off of. I agree I would rather have a single binary, and node may not be the best platform for shells on this point.
  - cies 9y ago
    > JavaScript looks nothing like the “created in 10 days” version to which you speak. It has improved, sure. But not only in the direction that makes me happy. But you cannot undo some bad design choices, without it becoming a different language. > I would highly suggest [...] I write JS at times. It hurts badly. Not everyone feels it. Maybe coming from PHP or Perl it does not even hurt that much. But after writing some Haskell and Elm lately, the pain got more intense. > Asyncs simplicity is arguably a reason why it’s a good platform to build off of. Not having choices is never a good thing in my book. And I do not think that JS does async particularly well. So much line noise when it comes to working with promises. No fan here.
    - masukomi 9y ago
      i'm with you @cies JS has had some of its edges smoothed out but it's not a great language and its answer to parallelism and concurrency is crap IMNSHO. And i'm someone who came from perl way back in the day.
    - yellowapple 9y ago
      "Maybe coming from PHP or Perl" I don't know about PHP (my experience with it is limited), but coming from Perl, Perl is a breath of fresh air in comparison. Then again, to me Haskell makes even the worst JAPH-style Perl one-liners look readable in comparison, so maybe I'm not the best judge of language design.

masukomi 9y ago

on a related note there's Upterm https://github.com/railsware/upterm https://github.com/railsware/upterm which is a terminal emulator in node. I've found it pretty sucky for running fish shell in but i think it's ok for bash and zsh