6 ms·

Amazing how people still put up with this nonsense. Bash really has no place in this age.

skywhopper 6y ago
Bash has multiple better solutions to this. This is a really really really old hack. New code that uses it is either trying to be backwards compatible to the extreme or is more likely just someone unthinkingly copying what they’ve been taught or seen.
qiqitori 6y ago
What's a decent replacement shell? Sometimes I think there should be one, with all backwards compatibility for if/looping thrown out, but still adhering to the core concept of mostly being made of a handful of builtins and otherwise executing commands (i.e., without having to type system("") or exec("") etc. to execute commands).
- mkj 6y ago
  Python with sh.py is often alright in the place of a shell script.
  - majkinetor 6y ago
    Really ? sh.ls("-l", "/tmp", color="never")
- majkinetor 6y ago
  PowerShell obvioslly, if you can handle awesome. Now there will be tones of angry dudes complaining about: - Optional verbosity - 1-5s startup time on some machines - Random MS agenda to conquer and destroy - Random problem with usage that is solved by RTFM - Suggesting python, ruby, go, node, perl and whatever non-shell language Thankfully, ignoring is still a great human feature.
  - jen20 6y ago
    First, I like PowerShell - sufficiently much to have used it as a login shell _on macOS_ for a while. However, you grossly overestimate the “awesome”. To answer each “angry dude” point in turn: - The verbosity is fine - in scripts, one should fully expand command names. Interactively, `gci` is fine (or the `ls` alias, though some of the default aliases are travesties). - The startup time is insane. I start a new terminal window hundreds of times per day, and the startup time is what made me abandon POSH. - Apache 2 licensed, so I don’t care. I do default to assuming that MSFT are doing something shady though, and I’m right [1]. - RTFMing is perfectly fine (and Get-Help has high quality documentation for built-ins), but one must accept that most users will not. ISE (if it existed outside of Windows) was a nice workaround for needing this. - Python, Ruby, Go, Node and Perl are all more portable (see my last comment about FreeBSD support). As an interactive shell, nushell [2] is probably the closest thing to the PowerShell experience which is not tied to .NET Core. [1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_telemetry?view=powershell-7.1 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft... [2]: https://github.com/nushell/nushell https://github.com/nushell/nushell
    - majkinetor 6y ago
      So your answers just confirm my 'angry dude' bullet list. As far as I can see, the only really problematic one is startup time, which is surely something that will be resolved in the future. I witnessed this only rarely while I use PowerShell on Windows and Linux - it was on windows and it was on VM with very slow disk, and some modules that each keep functions separated by files. I welcome nushell development, but you can't really compare it to pwsh - even if they continue developing it, its decade or so from being usable as main shell. > you grossly overestimate the “awesome”. Nah, its awesome. I save bunch of time any time I open the PowerShell. And any time when one tries to be quicker in some other language one is not, eventually.
      - jen20 6y ago
        In that case you cannot see sufficiently far: telemetry on by default is a non-starter. If the startup time were going to be fixed “real soon now”, it would have improved since 2006. It has not, especially when basic usability enhancements like “posh-git” are enabled. > [nushell is a] decade or so from being usable as a main shell News to me. I replaced Powershell with NuShell.
- orthoxerox 6y ago
  Does it have to be a shell? I would be fine with having bash as a shell for basic stuff like piping and a non-interactive scripting language for actual scripts.
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  I've written one specifically to solve if and looping: https://github.com/lmorg/murex https://github.com/lmorg/murex (docs: https://murex.rocks https://murex.rocks) Others I've not used are oil shell, which aims to be a better Bash. Elvish, which has a heck of a lot of similarities with my own project (and is arguably more mature too). There are REPL shells in LISP, Python and all sorts too. So there are options out there if you want a $SHELL and happy to break from POSIX and/or bash compatibility.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Seconding PowerShell. Or some future development that files off the rough edges, but otherwise follows the same sane principle of piping objects instead of unstructured text :).
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    So. Much. Typing. though.
    - netmare 6y ago
      Command/type aliases and autocompletion make this a non-issue on the console and advanced code editors. Personally, I don't mind the verbosity even when using plain editors, like Notepad2, my text/script editor of choice. Extra-long command names and deeply namespaced .Net types can be a chore both to read and write, but I find the *nix tools way too cryptic. Never could get used to them, but then again, I've been on DOS/Windows all my life since the 90s. To be honest, I'd occasionally get frustrated and think about switching to Linux. However, Python and PowerShell are the two things that have kept me on Windows. The fact that they are both open-source and cross-platform is just the cherry on top.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lmm 6y ago
  tclsh is very nice for scripts - it's a first-class part of TCL which is a proper grown-up programming language, but it pulls it very much into being a shell, and it's been around for decades so there's a decent chance that any old unix system will have it installed.
citrin_ru 6y ago
POSIX shell is a bit quirky language and bash add a few quirks on its own, but you can write reasonably working shell code if you'll approach it like any other programming language: learn it (read guides, read man), choose a style guide (or write own), use static analyzers (shellcheck is a great tool), test code on different inputs, ask to review your code. For some reason it is commonly believed that writing shell so easy that one don't need anything of this. Don't even need to learn it.
- majkinetor 6y ago
  I guess you can use that approach for pretty much anything in the world. You can totally use it for brainfuck. However, good systems impose elegance without users having to create complex standards around it.
  - klapatsibalo 6y ago
    I agree. However, we had to create complex C "standards" for dos and don'ts in order to _try_ to write safe code. And C is still omnipresent. So there must be some other characteristic of Bash that makes it not fit for this age (or some characteristic of C that makes it irreplaceable, that Bash does not have)
    - majkinetor 6y ago
      > And C is still omnipresent. And actively being replaced by rust each day because those "standards" are obviously not enough. And there is some other characteristic of C - its portable.
  - citrin_ru 6y ago
    1. Yes, but there are little reasons to use brainfuck in production code, and there are reasons to use POSIX shell: 1. It is available on practically all UNIX-like systems from NetBSD to Ubuntu in their default installation (no additional dependencies) 2. For small scripts it can run faster than Python/Ruby/Perl thanks to small startup time. 3. It is a handy tool when all you need a small script which mostly runs other commands/CLI tools (but you still have to spend at least little time to learn it first). May be availability of the shell is an unfortunate historical artifact, yet it still the reason why one may want to use it. 2. Idea to impose elegance upon users is attractive, but even if we ignore that it makes system/language design harder, different people can have different option on what is elegant and what is not. Having said that I like Go (which tries to enforce what can be enforced) because options of its author are not too far from mine. But not everybody is happy with Go and it is not hard to find its criticism.

Bash has multiple better solutions to this. This is a really really really old hack. New code that uses it is either trying to be backwards compatible to the extreme or is more likely just someone unthinkingly copying what they’ve been taught or seen.

qiqitori 6y ago

What's a decent replacement shell? Sometimes I think there should be one, with all backwards compatibility for if/looping thrown out, but still adhering to the core concept of mostly being made of a handful of builtins and otherwise executing commands (i.e., without having to type system("") or exec("") etc. to execute commands).

mkj 6y ago
Python with sh.py is often alright in the place of a shell script.
- majkinetor 6y ago
  Really ? sh.ls("-l", "/tmp", color="never")
majkinetor 6y ago
PowerShell obvioslly, if you can handle awesome. Now there will be tones of angry dudes complaining about: - Optional verbosity - 1-5s startup time on some machines - Random MS agenda to conquer and destroy - Random problem with usage that is solved by RTFM - Suggesting python, ruby, go, node, perl and whatever non-shell language Thankfully, ignoring is still a great human feature.
- jen20 6y ago
  First, I like PowerShell - sufficiently much to have used it as a login shell _on macOS_ for a while. However, you grossly overestimate the “awesome”. To answer each “angry dude” point in turn: - The verbosity is fine - in scripts, one should fully expand command names. Interactively, `gci` is fine (or the `ls` alias, though some of the default aliases are travesties). - The startup time is insane. I start a new terminal window hundreds of times per day, and the startup time is what made me abandon POSH. - Apache 2 licensed, so I don’t care. I do default to assuming that MSFT are doing something shady though, and I’m right [1]. - RTFMing is perfectly fine (and Get-Help has high quality documentation for built-ins), but one must accept that most users will not. ISE (if it existed outside of Windows) was a nice workaround for needing this. - Python, Ruby, Go, Node and Perl are all more portable (see my last comment about FreeBSD support). As an interactive shell, nushell [2] is probably the closest thing to the PowerShell experience which is not tied to .NET Core. [1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_telemetry?view=powershell-7.1 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft... [2]: https://github.com/nushell/nushell https://github.com/nushell/nushell
  - majkinetor 6y ago
    So your answers just confirm my 'angry dude' bullet list. As far as I can see, the only really problematic one is startup time, which is surely something that will be resolved in the future. I witnessed this only rarely while I use PowerShell on Windows and Linux - it was on windows and it was on VM with very slow disk, and some modules that each keep functions separated by files. I welcome nushell development, but you can't really compare it to pwsh - even if they continue developing it, its decade or so from being usable as main shell. > you grossly overestimate the “awesome”. Nah, its awesome. I save bunch of time any time I open the PowerShell. And any time when one tries to be quicker in some other language one is not, eventually.
    - jen20 6y ago
      In that case you cannot see sufficiently far: telemetry on by default is a non-starter. If the startup time were going to be fixed “real soon now”, it would have improved since 2006. It has not, especially when basic usability enhancements like “posh-git” are enabled. > [nushell is a] decade or so from being usable as a main shell News to me. I replaced Powershell with NuShell.
orthoxerox 6y ago
Does it have to be a shell? I would be fine with having bash as a shell for basic stuff like piping and a non-interactive scripting language for actual scripts.
hnlmorg 6y ago
I've written one specifically to solve if and looping: https://github.com/lmorg/murex https://github.com/lmorg/murex (docs: https://murex.rocks https://murex.rocks) Others I've not used are oil shell, which aims to be a better Bash. Elvish, which has a heck of a lot of similarities with my own project (and is arguably more mature too). There are REPL shells in LISP, Python and all sorts too. So there are options out there if you want a $SHELL and happy to break from POSIX and/or bash compatibility.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Seconding PowerShell. Or some future development that files off the rough edges, but otherwise follows the same sane principle of piping objects instead of unstructured text :).
- michaelcampbell 6y ago
  So. Much. Typing. though.
  - netmare 6y ago
    Command/type aliases and autocompletion make this a non-issue on the console and advanced code editors. Personally, I don't mind the verbosity even when using plain editors, like Notepad2, my text/script editor of choice. Extra-long command names and deeply namespaced .Net types can be a chore both to read and write, but I find the *nix tools way too cryptic. Never could get used to them, but then again, I've been on DOS/Windows all my life since the 90s. To be honest, I'd occasionally get frustrated and think about switching to Linux. However, Python and PowerShell are the two things that have kept me on Windows. The fact that they are both open-source and cross-platform is just the cherry on top.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lmm 6y ago
tclsh is very nice for scripts - it's a first-class part of TCL which is a proper grown-up programming language, but it pulls it very much into being a shell, and it's been around for decades so there's a decent chance that any old unix system will have it installed.

citrin_ru 6y ago

POSIX shell is a bit quirky language and bash add a few quirks on its own, but you can write reasonably working shell code if you'll approach it like any other programming language: learn it (read guides, read man), choose a style guide (or write own), use static analyzers (shellcheck is a great tool), test code on different inputs, ask to review your code. For some reason it is commonly believed that writing shell so easy that one don't need anything of this. Don't even need to learn it.

majkinetor 6y ago
I guess you can use that approach for pretty much anything in the world. You can totally use it for brainfuck. However, good systems impose elegance without users having to create complex standards around it.
- klapatsibalo 6y ago
  I agree. However, we had to create complex C "standards" for dos and don'ts in order to _try_ to write safe code. And C is still omnipresent. So there must be some other characteristic of Bash that makes it not fit for this age (or some characteristic of C that makes it irreplaceable, that Bash does not have)
  - majkinetor 6y ago
    > And C is still omnipresent. And actively being replaced by rust each day because those "standards" are obviously not enough. And there is some other characteristic of C - its portable.
- citrin_ru 6y ago
  1. Yes, but there are little reasons to use brainfuck in production code, and there are reasons to use POSIX shell: 1. It is available on practically all UNIX-like systems from NetBSD to Ubuntu in their default installation (no additional dependencies) 2. For small scripts it can run faster than Python/Ruby/Perl thanks to small startup time. 3. It is a handy tool when all you need a small script which mostly runs other commands/CLI tools (but you still have to spend at least little time to learn it first). May be availability of the shell is an unfortunate historical artifact, yet it still the reason why one may want to use it. 2. Idea to impose elegance upon users is attractive, but even if we ignore that it makes system/language design harder, different people can have different option on what is elegant and what is not. Having said that I like Go (which tries to enforce what can be enforced) because options of its author are not too far from mine. But not everybody is happy with Go and it is not hard to find its criticism.