5 ms·

Statistically, I think it'll always be more kids doing this, regardless of day of the week or year of millennia.

KingOfCoders 4y ago
I think it depends on your experience and what you have gone through, in my case how many of the decisions I've made that looked excellent to me back then, turned out to be okish at most.
chasil 4y ago
Can we actually improve the POSIX shell? Can we reform it, perhaps into a "D-shell," that is an LR-parsed language? AWK had a yacc grammar for many years. Why can't this be the language of the shell, at least for the sake of maintainability and comprehension? https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/code_parsing_posix_s_hell/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/code_parsing_...
- msla 4y ago
  The problem with making a shell more like a "real" interpreter REPL is the purpose of a shell: Running arbitrary programs not known to the author of the shell, such that any unknown word in a shell script is probably the name of a program as opposed to a misspelled reserved word or variable name. Those programs having arbitrary command-line arguments and having to operate on files with arbitrary names is another complexity.
  - pasc1878 4y ago
    It has been done. See xonsh a python shell which manages the distinction you mention. Also see scsh and rash for scheme Fish for non posix but sane syntax
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    It's interesting to see how so many things grow into each other. A shell is what you say, but there are many efforts to change that. Bash has its magic autocomplete which knows about options of many, many programs. Powershell has an object-model with knowledge of many of its commands.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  > Can we actually improve the POSIX shell? PowerShell?
  - chasil 4y ago
    No, that won't work. $ ll /bin/dash -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 85368 Jan 5 09:52 /bin/dash If you can make Powershell in a binary that size, then you have a valid point.
    - shubhamkrm 4y ago
      But why? Storage is much cheaper today than it was in the 80s. While I myself don’t like huge Electron apps, trying to save every byte of storage is simply not worth it.
      - chasil 4y ago
        Embedded applications on smaller systems are why. The POSIX shell is common, from the largest supercomputer down to the smallest ARM. I don't think that there will be any new developments covering that full scope.
        deafpolygon 4y ago
        Embedded systems don't exclude PowerShell from being a replacement for POSIX shells. Maybe embedded systems should not strive to be POSIX.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        Many embedded systems hardly have any shell, and even when they do, it isn't bash (which isn't POSIX anyway), rather a tiny subset with the basic tooling for maintenance.
Dalewyn 4y ago
Part of the process of erecting your own identity, both individually and as a generation, involves flatly refusing and denying the practices of your immediate predecessors (eg: your parents' and their generation of men, source code written by programmers before your time, etc.). It's stupid and almost always leads to unintended (and usually negative) consequences, but it's probably something strongly ingrained in our instincts because it rears its ugly head every time there's a generational turnover.
- incrudible 4y ago
  If you do not understand why this happens, do not call it stupid. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to call it stupid.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    It's stupid in the sense that it's a waste of time and resources. Sooner or later after you've had your fun refusing and denying your predecessors, you realize why they do things the way they do, become wiser, and go back and undo and redo all the fuckery you caused with your refusing and denying. It would be nice if we could get that realization without first having to fuck everything up, y'know?
    - WJW 4y ago
      Even in this description you use the words "you realize" and "become wiser" and then describe it as "a waste". It's not a waste, it's just the cost of education. As the saying goes: "good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions". It would be great if we could all come out of the womb with enough education and experience to function as responsible adults in modern society, but we don't. Society (rightfully) allows people some leeway in doing dumb shit so that they can learn firsthand why it's dumb.
      - Dalewyn 4y ago
        The experience is absolutely not a waste, don't get me wrong. What I'm calling a waste are the time and resources spent undoing and redoing everything. It's all cute if this just happens during our childhood years, where most actions hold no real consequence. It's when this extends into the real world with very real consequences that it gets really wasteful.

I think it depends on your experience and what you have gone through, in my case how many of the decisions I've made that looked excellent to me back then, turned out to be okish at most.

chasil 4y ago

Can we actually improve the POSIX shell? Can we reform it, perhaps into a "D-shell," that is an LR-parsed language? AWK had a yacc grammar for many years. Why can't this be the language of the shell, at least for the sake of maintainability and comprehension? https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/code_parsing_posix_s_hell/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/code_parsing_...

msla 4y ago
The problem with making a shell more like a "real" interpreter REPL is the purpose of a shell: Running arbitrary programs not known to the author of the shell, such that any unknown word in a shell script is probably the name of a program as opposed to a misspelled reserved word or variable name. Those programs having arbitrary command-line arguments and having to operate on files with arbitrary names is another complexity.
- pasc1878 4y ago
  It has been done. See xonsh a python shell which manages the distinction you mention. Also see scsh and rash for scheme Fish for non posix but sane syntax
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  It's interesting to see how so many things grow into each other. A shell is what you say, but there are many efforts to change that. Bash has its magic autocomplete which knows about options of many, many programs. Powershell has an object-model with knowledge of many of its commands.
deafpolygon 4y ago
> Can we actually improve the POSIX shell? PowerShell?
- chasil 4y ago
  No, that won't work. $ ll /bin/dash -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 85368 Jan 5 09:52 /bin/dash If you can make Powershell in a binary that size, then you have a valid point.
  - shubhamkrm 4y ago
    But why? Storage is much cheaper today than it was in the 80s. While I myself don’t like huge Electron apps, trying to save every byte of storage is simply not worth it.
    - chasil 4y ago
      Embedded applications on smaller systems are why. The POSIX shell is common, from the largest supercomputer down to the smallest ARM. I don't think that there will be any new developments covering that full scope.
      - deafpolygon 4y ago
        Embedded systems don't exclude PowerShell from being a replacement for POSIX shells. Maybe embedded systems should not strive to be POSIX.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Many embedded systems hardly have any shell, and even when they do, it isn't bash (which isn't POSIX anyway), rather a tiny subset with the basic tooling for maintenance.

Dalewyn 4y ago

Part of the process of erecting your own identity, both individually and as a generation, involves flatly refusing and denying the practices of your immediate predecessors (eg: your parents' and their generation of men, source code written by programmers before your time, etc.). It's stupid and almost always leads to unintended (and usually negative) consequences, but it's probably something strongly ingrained in our instincts because it rears its ugly head every time there's a generational turnover.

incrudible 4y ago
If you do not understand why this happens, do not call it stupid. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to call it stupid.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  It's stupid in the sense that it's a waste of time and resources. Sooner or later after you've had your fun refusing and denying your predecessors, you realize why they do things the way they do, become wiser, and go back and undo and redo all the fuckery you caused with your refusing and denying. It would be nice if we could get that realization without first having to fuck everything up, y'know?
  - WJW 4y ago
    Even in this description you use the words "you realize" and "become wiser" and then describe it as "a waste". It's not a waste, it's just the cost of education. As the saying goes: "good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions". It would be great if we could all come out of the womb with enough education and experience to function as responsible adults in modern society, but we don't. Society (rightfully) allows people some leeway in doing dumb shit so that they can learn firsthand why it's dumb.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      The experience is absolutely not a waste, don't get me wrong. What I'm calling a waste are the time and resources spent undoing and redoing everything. It's all cute if this just happens during our childhood years, where most actions hold no real consequence. It's when this extends into the real world with very real consequences that it gets really wasteful.