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>Again, four decades outweighs any amount of pontification in a blog post. Many more people used MS-DOS/Windows during that time. >And it sucks, which is why
by yyyk 3y ago
>Again, four decades outweighs any amount of pontification in a blog post.
Many more people used MS-DOS/Windows during that time.
>And it sucks, which is why we all continue to use the Bourne shell after four decades to solve these problems.
>But no, we don't want that. We want shell.
People continue to use Linux and Unix and interactive shell for good reasons. Shell as scripting shell is there simply because it's available, a form of Stockholm Syndrome I guess.
- ajross 3y ago> Many more people used MS-DOS/Windows during that time. But not since. No one writes new win16 or DOS or batch files. People still write shell scripts. Every day. Despite the existence of a deluge of supposedly better solutions. And if your explanation for why shell is so terrible doesn't have a way to explain that, I argue it's an incorrect explanation. "We all have Stockholm Syndrome" is just ridiculous, btw.
- yyyk 3y ago>But not since >No one writes new win16 or DOS or batch files. More than you'd think (CMD files are still supported). Fortunately the syntax is too basic for it to be used too much. However, EXCEL+VBScript runs the financial world. Is VBScript a good language? Shell and VBScript have some half-decent insights for their time, but they have remained stuck while programming languages have improved. The reason people write less CMD files - because Microsoft improved with Powershell.
- foul 3y ago>Many more people used MS-DOS/Windows during that time. Most of them suffer for a decade, then (if they stay under Windows) they mostly find Python or Autohotkey.
- kergonath 3y agoPlenty of us use Linux with something better than bash (zsh, oil, fish, whatever). I know I have for quite a long time now.
- mbwgh 3y agoOr they stick to bash to keep their skills honed for when they have to understand some third-party script, or you ssh into some system and can't just quickly install fish first.
- yyyk 3y agoLinux with other shells is fine. It's just that Bourne is a poor scripting language with way too many footguns. Unfortunately there's plenty of bash shell scripts we are likely running because some people don't know there are better options, or because they are worried about dependencies and write to nigh-lowest denominator.
- kergonath 3y ago> because they are worried about dependencies and write to nigh-lowest denominator. Yeah, here’s a strong culture of writing ultraportable scripts in case our precious script ends up running on a SunOS box somehow. There are cases where it’s important, but not the dozens of small-ish scripts we end up relying on daily. I entirely agree about the rest of your comment.