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I have a bunch of reservations, already when reading just the paper's abstract: > The Unix shell is a powerful, ubiquitous, and reviled tool for managing compu

I have a bunch of reservations, already when reading just the paper's abstract: > The Unix shell is a powerful, ubiquitous, and reviled tool for managing computer systems. Reviled? By those who use it often, it is more loved than reviled. > The shell has been largely ignored by academia and industry. Seems like a bit of an exaggeration, but it's true that corporations have a thing for creating custom proprietary software rather than providing shell-script-based solutions. > While many replacement shells have been proposed, the Unix shell persists. There is no single "the" Unix shell. bash is probably the most popular, but it isn't "the" shell, singular. > Two recent threads of formal and practical research on the shell enable new approaches. We can help manage the shell’s essential shortcomings (dynamism, power, and abstruseness) Again with "the" shell. Anyway, a shall should be dynamic and powerful; and I wouldn't say bash is _terribly_ abstruse. If you apply yourself, your code could actually be rather readable. and address its inessential ones. Improving the shell holdsmuch promise for development, ops, and data processing.

nomoreusernames 5y ago
the fact that you can make your own functions and aliases makes me really doubt that people really understand the point of a shell. sure treating everything like a string may seem really dumb. but its easy peasy. because, well everything is a string. once you accept that its not that hard. anytime i can predict i need to repeat a task i can just create a function like work_helpers__reset_dans_password_again, and then you have it there in your tab complete. or why not just run: work_helpers__reset_password dan i think its because people dont want to rtfm. if they would rtfm, they would learn most problems have a solution that is not insane like the one they are about to start developing. you know how often i see this: cat somefile |grep thething instead of just: grep thething somefile
- effie 5y ago
  The useless cat is actually very useful in practice - it is more readable and easier to modify.

nomoreusernames 5y ago

the fact that you can make your own functions and aliases makes me really doubt that people really understand the point of a shell. sure treating everything like a string may seem really dumb. but its easy peasy. because, well everything is a string. once you accept that its not that hard. anytime i can predict i need to repeat a task i can just create a function like work_helpers__reset_dans_password_again, and then you have it there in your tab complete. or why not just run: work_helpers__reset_password dan i think its because people dont want to rtfm. if they would rtfm, they would learn most problems have a solution that is not insane like the one they are about to start developing. you know how often i see this: cat somefile |grep thething instead of just: grep thething somefile

effie 5y ago
The useless cat is actually very useful in practice - it is more readable and easier to modify.