5 ms·

Long time zsh user here. Any reason one should try out fish?

giancarlostoro 8y ago
I'm not sure how nice zsh is by default, but out of the box Fish is nice, it's just not compatible with bash scripts. I think of it as a really nice shell for terminal use, I wouldn't write "fish" scripts personally, not as portable. I mostly like that it tells me when my commands are wrong or when it autocompletes (usually hints are based on the directory you're in which is nice). I tried zsh ages back and if I remember correctly you had to configure it yourself to get to such a point. Note I only install fish in systems I fully own, I rather not confuse coworkers by using another shell. Also forces me to be more careful when in a production system.
lghh 8y ago
There is basically no configuration. It's set it and forget it.
aequitas 8y ago
Coming from ZSH, Fish is a shell that just worked out of the box for me. It did everything ZSH did but I didn't have to touch a single configuration file to make it work. With ZSH I was forced to find all the options I wanted enabled and tuned or had to resort oh-my-zsh or templates from others to get all the good stuff. Managing dotfiles across workstations and servers. With Fish about the only thing I do after installing is set a theme with Git status.
- hjek 8y ago
  > It did everything ZSH did ... and some additional things that you can't do in zsh without plugins, such as autosuggestions[0]. [0]: https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions
- cpach 8y ago
  ”Fish is a shell that just worked out of the box for me” Same here. Fish’s configuration defaults are very well thought out and incredibly smooth. My config.fish is only nine lines.
  - snazz 8y ago
    And when you do want to configure it, you can choose to use either config.fish or the web-based configuration tool. The web tool is very nicely thought out and lets you preview themes and such before you use them.
    - aequitas 8y ago
      Yet the thought of a shell with a web interface made me shudder at first. Like those electron based terminal emulators.
      - faho 8y ago
        It's a python script, using python's http.server. If you're not executing `fish_config` explicitly, nothing is running.
        aequitas 8y ago
        Nice use of the Python http module. Never looked into the function before tbh (didn't expect the server to be running in the shell though). But just did using `funced` (which I just discovered in the changelog, nice feature as well).
        hjek 8y ago
        It's also great when you need an ad hoc web server: python -m http.server
- gregwebs 8y ago
  I have started a lot of unsophisticated shell users with Oh My Zsh which works great without any configuration, and is what I use myself. I can see how its easier to just make sure Fish is installed, but in some situations (NFS home directory mount and zsh already available) it is easier to install oh my zsh in HOME. https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh
- arunix 8y ago
  With zsh, I can do ~1, ~2 etc to move around a directory stack. Does fish have anything like that? http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Intro/intro_6.html#SEC6 http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Intro/intro_6.html#SEC6
  - faho 8y ago
    Fish does not include tons of syntactic shortcuts. We try to keep the syntax fairly free of opaque symbols. You can use `prevd` and `nextd`, or you can use key bindings, like the default alt-left and alt-right bindings.
    - arunix 8y ago
      How do you go to the nth item of the directory stack? Even bash lets you do this: $ dirs -v 0 ~/baz 1 ~ 2 ~/bar 3 ~/foo 4 ~/spam Then "pushd +3" will take you to ~/foo. This hardly seems "opaque".
      - faho 8y ago
        That's included, just the `~2` shortcut thing isn't.
        arunix 8y ago
        Which is included? I couldn't find anything like "dirs -v" in the fish manual. Without that, "pushd +N" isn't very useful.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        nimih 8y ago
        There's a "dirs" command, which lists the directory stack, and a "cdh" command, which lists your directory history.
  - 8y ago
fimdomeio 8y ago
I use fish for years but never explored it deeply. Mostly I choose it "just works". Auto-completion based on history is great, vim mode seemed kind of silly at first but after I started using it just feels very natural.
tnecniv 8y ago
I just switched back to zsh after using fish for a while. I found fish nice, but found the lack of POSIX compliance annoying when I wanted to modify things in my rc. I also just like the (oh-my-)zsh defaults better.
rixed 8y ago
I was a long time zsh user too until a few months ago, when i tried to configure zsh line completion for a new tool. After a few hours of reading and trying I looked at how this other new she'll did it. Found the doc clear and the implementation clean, was able to solve my problem in no time. Havn't looked back although I'm not a big fan of breaking sh compatibility for many futile things, I welcome the simpler design.
AnthonBerg 8y ago
At the very least it is a very well designed piece of software. Even if only for that reason, I would recommend taking a look.
ElijahLynn 8y ago
Abbreviations!!! No more aliases, abbreviations are the killer feature. See my other comment in this post for an example. Also, inline function creation, editing and saving are also pretty killer. I make way more one-day use functions than on bash with fish.
h1d 8y ago
Haven't tried 3.0 yet but it had some gotchas back then that I switched back to zsh when zsh could just do all fish could do with enough customization but kept using fish for shell scripting as it looked more sane than the bash like syntax that is ancient.

I'm not sure how nice zsh is by default, but out of the box Fish is nice, it's just not compatible with bash scripts. I think of it as a really nice shell for terminal use, I wouldn't write "fish" scripts personally, not as portable. I mostly like that it tells me when my commands are wrong or when it autocompletes (usually hints are based on the directory you're in which is nice). I tried zsh ages back and if I remember correctly you had to configure it yourself to get to such a point. Note I only install fish in systems I fully own, I rather not confuse coworkers by using another shell. Also forces me to be more careful when in a production system.

lghh 8y ago

There is basically no configuration. It's set it and forget it.

aequitas 8y ago

Coming from ZSH, Fish is a shell that just worked out of the box for me. It did everything ZSH did but I didn't have to touch a single configuration file to make it work. With ZSH I was forced to find all the options I wanted enabled and tuned or had to resort oh-my-zsh or templates from others to get all the good stuff. Managing dotfiles across workstations and servers. With Fish about the only thing I do after installing is set a theme with Git status.

hjek 8y ago
> It did everything ZSH did ... and some additional things that you can't do in zsh without plugins, such as autosuggestions[0]. [0]: https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions
cpach 8y ago
”Fish is a shell that just worked out of the box for me” Same here. Fish’s configuration defaults are very well thought out and incredibly smooth. My config.fish is only nine lines.
- snazz 8y ago
  And when you do want to configure it, you can choose to use either config.fish or the web-based configuration tool. The web tool is very nicely thought out and lets you preview themes and such before you use them.
  - aequitas 8y ago
    Yet the thought of a shell with a web interface made me shudder at first. Like those electron based terminal emulators.
    - faho 8y ago
      It's a python script, using python's http.server. If you're not executing `fish_config` explicitly, nothing is running.
      - aequitas 8y ago
        Nice use of the Python http module. Never looked into the function before tbh (didn't expect the server to be running in the shell though). But just did using `funced` (which I just discovered in the changelog, nice feature as well).
        hjek 8y ago
        It's also great when you need an ad hoc web server: python -m http.server
gregwebs 8y ago
I have started a lot of unsophisticated shell users with Oh My Zsh which works great without any configuration, and is what I use myself. I can see how its easier to just make sure Fish is installed, but in some situations (NFS home directory mount and zsh already available) it is easier to install oh my zsh in HOME. https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh
arunix 8y ago
With zsh, I can do ~1, ~2 etc to move around a directory stack. Does fish have anything like that? http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Intro/intro_6.html#SEC6 http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Intro/intro_6.html#SEC6
- faho 8y ago
  Fish does not include tons of syntactic shortcuts. We try to keep the syntax fairly free of opaque symbols. You can use `prevd` and `nextd`, or you can use key bindings, like the default alt-left and alt-right bindings.
  - arunix 8y ago
    How do you go to the nth item of the directory stack? Even bash lets you do this: $ dirs -v 0 ~/baz 1 ~ 2 ~/bar 3 ~/foo 4 ~/spam Then "pushd +3" will take you to ~/foo. This hardly seems "opaque".
    - faho 8y ago
      That's included, just the `~2` shortcut thing isn't.
      - arunix 8y ago
        Which is included? I couldn't find anything like "dirs -v" in the fish manual. Without that, "pushd +N" isn't very useful.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        nimih 8y ago
        There's a "dirs" command, which lists the directory stack, and a "cdh" command, which lists your directory history.
- 8y ago

fimdomeio 8y ago

I use fish for years but never explored it deeply. Mostly I choose it "just works". Auto-completion based on history is great, vim mode seemed kind of silly at first but after I started using it just feels very natural.

tnecniv 8y ago

I just switched back to zsh after using fish for a while. I found fish nice, but found the lack of POSIX compliance annoying when I wanted to modify things in my rc. I also just like the (oh-my-)zsh defaults better.

rixed 8y ago

I was a long time zsh user too until a few months ago, when i tried to configure zsh line completion for a new tool. After a few hours of reading and trying I looked at how this other new she'll did it. Found the doc clear and the implementation clean, was able to solve my problem in no time. Havn't looked back although I'm not a big fan of breaking sh compatibility for many futile things, I welcome the simpler design.

AnthonBerg 8y ago

At the very least it is a very well designed piece of software. Even if only for that reason, I would recommend taking a look.

ElijahLynn 8y ago

Abbreviations!!! No more aliases, abbreviations are the killer feature. See my other comment in this post for an example. Also, inline function creation, editing and saving are also pretty killer. I make way more one-day use functions than on bash with fish.

h1d 8y ago

Haven't tried 3.0 yet but it had some gotchas back then that I switched back to zsh when zsh could just do all fish could do with enough customization but kept using fish for shell scripting as it looked more sane than the bash like syntax that is ancient.