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Sad that none of those projects took the easy route. If you want to replace Bash, do it the way Bash replaced Bourne: Make it backwards compatible. Bash acts l

Sad that none of those projects took the easy route. If you want to replace Bash, do it the way Bash replaced Bourne: Make it backwards compatible. Bash acts like 'historical versions of sh' if it was invoked as sh. So, a Bash replacement could act like Bash if it was invoked like bash. Then implement all the extra crazy shit if you invoke it as slash or something. Assuming it was a small, fast, compiled binary, this would take off in all the distros pretty much immediately. And if you really want it to succeed, implement a spec first, and implementations second. Add a slash implementation to Busybox, and then it's on every embedded Linux system in the world.

maddyboo 6y ago
It would certainly be nice, but I wouldn’t call that the easy route. Creating a new shell that’s fully backwards compatible with the monstrosity that is Bash sounds like a massive undertaking. POSIX or the Bourne shell is probably an easier target, and there are numerous alternative shells that are POSIX-compatible and add nice new features or optional alternate syntaxes. But I agree, to properly dethrone Bash would probably require backwards compatibility with it.
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  Personally I don't see the point dethroning bash. I mean Bash still hasn't completely dethroned the Bourne shell. And now there is a lot more competition in shells than there ever was. Personally I think the better approach is to accept that bash/sh will always be about for legacy stuff and for alternative shells to carve out a niche elsewhere. Particularly because to some of bash/sh's pain points can't be addressed without break compatibility in the first place (like handling file names with spaces).
hnlmorg 6y ago
Literally the first in the GPs list, Oil shell, aims to do just that. > Oil is a new Unix shell. It's our upgrade path from bash to a better language and runtime. https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/01/why-a-new-shell.html https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/01/why-a-new-shell.html

maddyboo 6y ago

It would certainly be nice, but I wouldn’t call that the easy route. Creating a new shell that’s fully backwards compatible with the monstrosity that is Bash sounds like a massive undertaking. POSIX or the Bourne shell is probably an easier target, and there are numerous alternative shells that are POSIX-compatible and add nice new features or optional alternate syntaxes. But I agree, to properly dethrone Bash would probably require backwards compatibility with it.

hnlmorg 6y ago
Personally I don't see the point dethroning bash. I mean Bash still hasn't completely dethroned the Bourne shell. And now there is a lot more competition in shells than there ever was. Personally I think the better approach is to accept that bash/sh will always be about for legacy stuff and for alternative shells to carve out a niche elsewhere. Particularly because to some of bash/sh's pain points can't be addressed without break compatibility in the first place (like handling file names with spaces).

hnlmorg 6y ago

Literally the first in the GPs list, Oil shell, aims to do just that. > Oil is a new Unix shell. It's our upgrade path from bash to a better language and runtime. https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/01/why-a-new-shell.html https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/01/why-a-new-shell.html