4 ms·

I'd like to see a language that's as easy to use on the shell as bash (optional quoting, chaining, etc), but is as powerful as the more general-purpose scriptin

by jayferd 15y ago

I'd like to see a language that's as easy to use on the shell as bash (optional quoting, chaining, etc), but is as powerful as the more general-purpose scripting languages (Ruby/Python/TCL/Perl/etc). If no such thing exists I think I'm gonna try designing one.

e1ven 15y ago
Wasn't that sort of the original design spec for perl?
- webjprgm 15y ago
  Agreed. Besides Perl, you can also use Ruby and PHP just as easily. At least that works for me. The main selling point is the ability to run shell commands with `command here`. I exclude Python from my list because you have to use the subprocess module, which makes it more complicated.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - wladimir 15y ago
    You could use ipython, which is a python-based shell that doesn't need explicitly calling the subprocess module to launch commands (and a lot more goodies).
joelthelion 15y ago
It doesn't exist, and yes, it would be very useful.
LeafStorm 15y ago
I am working on a design for one as well. It's rather tricky, because there are a lot of things you have to balance in order to get a well-designed programming language, especially when you want it to be usable for the sort of things shell scripting is good at, because shell as it exists is basically the opposite of a well-designed programming language and is only popular because it got here first.
geophile 15y ago
Check out Object Shell: http://geophile.com/osh http://geophile.com/osh. It takes the idea of commands and pipes, but is oriented around python objects. Usable from the command line, and also has a python API. It includes integration with the OS (e.g. commands to get files and processes as python objects), databases, remote nodes, and combinations of these, (E.g. submit a query to all nodes in a cluster, pull back the results and integrate them.) I developed and used this tool while developing a sharded system running on a cluster of nodes with postgres running on each. Object Shell is GPL. See the page above for examples, documentation and downloads.
groovy2shoes 15y ago
There's always Scheme Shell: http://www.scsh.net/ http://www.scsh.net/
- philjackson 15y ago
  Non-interactive and unmaintained, unfortunately.

by jayferd 15y ago

e1ven 15y ago

Wasn't that sort of the original design spec for perl?

webjprgm 15y ago
Agreed. Besides Perl, you can also use Ruby and PHP just as easily. At least that works for me. The main selling point is the ability to run shell commands with `command here`. I exclude Python from my list because you have to use the subprocess module, which makes it more complicated.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- wladimir 15y ago
  You could use ipython, which is a python-based shell that doesn't need explicitly calling the subprocess module to launch commands (and a lot more goodies).

joelthelion 15y ago

It doesn't exist, and yes, it would be very useful.

LeafStorm 15y ago

I am working on a design for one as well. It's rather tricky, because there are a lot of things you have to balance in order to get a well-designed programming language, especially when you want it to be usable for the sort of things shell scripting is good at, because shell as it exists is basically the opposite of a well-designed programming language and is only popular because it got here first.

geophile 15y ago

Check out Object Shell: http://geophile.com/osh http://geophile.com/osh. It takes the idea of commands and pipes, but is oriented around python objects. Usable from the command line, and also has a python API. It includes integration with the OS (e.g. commands to get files and processes as python objects), databases, remote nodes, and combinations of these, (E.g. submit a query to all nodes in a cluster, pull back the results and integrate them.) I developed and used this tool while developing a sharded system running on a cluster of nodes with postgres running on each. Object Shell is GPL. See the page above for examples, documentation and downloads.

groovy2shoes 15y ago

There's always Scheme Shell: http://www.scsh.net/ http://www.scsh.net/

philjackson 15y ago
Non-interactive and unmaintained, unfortunately.