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Because cross-OS (not just cross-linux-distro but even that) standards-making doesn't exist anymore in a real non-broken way, and we're stuck with whatever stan

Because cross-OS (not just cross-linux-distro but even that) standards-making doesn't exist anymore in a real non-broken way, and we're stuck with whatever standards of 20+ years ago. Whether official or de facto (technically bash is just de facto although `bash --posix` or `sh` is an official real standard). There basically isn't any "innovation" happening in this space in a way that could really result in anything as pervasive as bash. Maybe also cause it's just not "interesting" anymore, the 'sexy' things are many levels of abstraction higher than they were when bash came to dominance. It feels like now we're just stuck with it forever, indeed.

m3at 5y ago
I agree with your broader point that we seem stuck with old shells and no contenders seems in a position to replace them. However some are certainly trying, like osh [1] that takes backwards compatibility with bash seriously, which makes adoption easier. Maybe it'll be like the C++ vs Rust situation? https://www.oilshell.org/ https://www.oilshell.org/
quotemstr 5y ago
Maybe it's time for some other body --- say, freedesktop.org --- to start standardizing things that have traditionally been in the domain of POSIX. After all, HTML got much better when WHATWG took W3C's toys away and actually started innovating HTML again. Maybe it's time to do something similar with Unix: I'm sick and tired of people telling everyone that we have to stay in some 1995 time capsule because we need to follow The Standard and if The Standard hasn't changed, too bad.
majormajor 5y ago
You say "don't exist anymore" but when was it better? Pre-Mac-OS-X you didn't even have an easy to access shell there on Macs, and Windows wasn't bash either. So if there was a golden era for that, it never included the two predominant desktop OSes. De-facto standardization has at least brought us free officially-supported options for running Bash or other *nix shells on both of those platforms(if terribly outdated on Mac).
registeredcorn 5y ago
> Because cross-OS (not just cross-linux-distro but even that) standards-making doesn't exist anymore in a real non-broken way, and we're stuck with whatever standards of 20+ years ago. As someone who's struggled to grasp some of the finer points of programming, OS, etc. can you expand on this a bit? Why is it that standards have gone the way they have?

m3at 5y ago

I agree with your broader point that we seem stuck with old shells and no contenders seems in a position to replace them. However some are certainly trying, like osh [1] that takes backwards compatibility with bash seriously, which makes adoption easier. Maybe it'll be like the C++ vs Rust situation? https://www.oilshell.org/ https://www.oilshell.org/

quotemstr 5y ago

Maybe it's time for some other body --- say, freedesktop.org --- to start standardizing things that have traditionally been in the domain of POSIX. After all, HTML got much better when WHATWG took W3C's toys away and actually started innovating HTML again. Maybe it's time to do something similar with Unix: I'm sick and tired of people telling everyone that we have to stay in some 1995 time capsule because we need to follow The Standard and if The Standard hasn't changed, too bad.

majormajor 5y ago

You say "don't exist anymore" but when was it better? Pre-Mac-OS-X you didn't even have an easy to access shell there on Macs, and Windows wasn't bash either. So if there was a golden era for that, it never included the two predominant desktop OSes. De-facto standardization has at least brought us free officially-supported options for running Bash or other *nix shells on both of those platforms(if terribly outdated on Mac).

registeredcorn 5y ago

> Because cross-OS (not just cross-linux-distro but even that) standards-making doesn't exist anymore in a real non-broken way, and we're stuck with whatever standards of 20+ years ago. As someone who's struggled to grasp some of the finer points of programming, OS, etc. can you expand on this a bit? Why is it that standards have gone the way they have?