6 ms·

> If I have to search the internet for how to do x in nushell/fish/etc, I might as well stick to arcane bash - at least you know someone has had the same proble

by pxc 3y ago

> If I have to search the internet for how to do x in nushell/fish/etc, I might as well stick to arcane bash - at least you know someone has had the same problem before. I feel the opposite way: if I don't really know Bash, I'm not throwing away a bunch of my hard-earned knowledge and experience to start again from zero by switching to Fish. It's just a lateral move, and an obvious win if the shell it takes me to is simpler, smaller, or otherwise easier to learn.

theamk 3y ago
As long as you interact with others' software, the chances are, you will have to read bash in the future. So sure, you can learn fish, but you will likely have to learn some bash (or even sh) anyway. Might as well start from common option.
- wavemode 3y ago
  To be fair, that same argument could be made against any new programming language designed to replace an old, firmly entrenched one.
  - kuchenbecker 3y ago
    And it is, I use that argument regularly when people want to spin up a new project in a new language when the tooling doesn't support the new language and it's an uphill battle to make it work.
    - wavemode 3y ago
      No, "lack of good tooling" is a completely different argument. The argument put forth by the comment I replied to is that there is basically no point learning a new language, because to work with existing code you still have to know the old language. Which I think is a massive fallacy. Yes, Kotlin programmers still have to understand Java to be effective. That doesn't make Kotlin useless.
      - theamk 3y ago
        Shell is pretty special though - it is a very frequent secondary language. In fact, even Kotlin itself uses bash: https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/blob/master/scripts/build-kotlin-maven.sh https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/blob/master/scripts/buil... So sure, replace Java with Kotlin, C++ with Rust, Python with go/julia/ruby/whatever.. but bash or sh is here to stay. (And that would be bash or sh, not fish or nushell or something...)
  - theamk 3y ago
    Sure, and that's why Zig or D are not in the any of the top 10 lists. You have to get a lot benefits to justify switching to a new default against the current critical mass. (and this is especially true for shells: a large number of code is written in sh because it's assumed to be installed on all users' systems; so unless so many software starts requiring "fish" that it gets into default system install, we'll be seeing sh for a long, long time)
- Qwertious 3y ago
  I try to avoid bash because it keeps biting me whenever I try to learn it - `x=y` is different than `x = y`, for instance. I want this to die, and the only way for it to die is for people to stop using it. Yes, it'll never truly die, but that's also true of COBOL and m4 - and you haven't learned either of those languages I'd guess.

by pxc 3y ago

theamk 3y ago

As long as you interact with others' software, the chances are, you will have to read bash in the future. So sure, you can learn fish, but you will likely have to learn some bash (or even sh) anyway. Might as well start from common option.

wavemode 3y ago
To be fair, that same argument could be made against any new programming language designed to replace an old, firmly entrenched one.
- kuchenbecker 3y ago
  And it is, I use that argument regularly when people want to spin up a new project in a new language when the tooling doesn't support the new language and it's an uphill battle to make it work.
  - wavemode 3y ago
    No, "lack of good tooling" is a completely different argument. The argument put forth by the comment I replied to is that there is basically no point learning a new language, because to work with existing code you still have to know the old language. Which I think is a massive fallacy. Yes, Kotlin programmers still have to understand Java to be effective. That doesn't make Kotlin useless.
    - theamk 3y ago
      Shell is pretty special though - it is a very frequent secondary language. In fact, even Kotlin itself uses bash: https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/blob/master/scripts/build-kotlin-maven.sh https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/blob/master/scripts/buil... So sure, replace Java with Kotlin, C++ with Rust, Python with go/julia/ruby/whatever.. but bash or sh is here to stay. (And that would be bash or sh, not fish or nushell or something...)
- theamk 3y ago
  Sure, and that's why Zig or D are not in the any of the top 10 lists. You have to get a lot benefits to justify switching to a new default against the current critical mass. (and this is especially true for shells: a large number of code is written in sh because it's assumed to be installed on all users' systems; so unless so many software starts requiring "fish" that it gets into default system install, we'll be seeing sh for a long, long time)
Qwertious 3y ago
I try to avoid bash because it keeps biting me whenever I try to learn it - `x=y` is different than `x = y`, for instance. I want this to die, and the only way for it to die is for people to stop using it. Yes, it'll never truly die, but that's also true of COBOL and m4 - and you haven't learned either of those languages I'd guess.