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I have recently switched to using Nushell as my default shell. They were also writing their own but recently decided instead to begin incorporating github.com/u

I have recently switched to using Nushell as my default shell. They were also writing their own but recently decided instead to begin incorporating github.com/uutils/coreutils (Rust rewrite of GNU coreutils). They target uutils to be a drop-in replacement for the GNU utils. Differences with GNU are treated as bugs.

Aerbil313 3y ago
Yeah, this is nice but also sad. GNU coreutils is ancient at this point. I know this is probably critical to get user share for nushell and not enough dev resources etc. but I’d wish they were innovating on this front too with simpler and less bloated coreutils, as they are already completely changing the shell paradigm.
- lf-non 3y ago
  It doesn't have to be an either-or proposition Yes? People are free to experiment with alternative cli utils which are not burdened by backward compatibility while nushell also remains easily adoptable by users who are accustomed to coreutils.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    Well yeah, but there’s always something to forcing people to move on to the next thing. I know I’m asking for too much.
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    I agree. I’ve written about this before but this is what murex (1) does. It reimplements some of coreutils where there are benefits in doing so (eg sed, grep etc -like parsing of lists that are in formats other than flat lines of text. Such as JSON arrays) Mutex does this by having these utilities named slightly different to their POSIX counterparts. So you can use all of the existing CLI tools completely but additionally have a bunch of new stuff too. Far too many alt shells these days try to replace coreutils and that just creates friction in my opinion. 1. https://murex.rocks https://murex.rocks
- abhinavk 3y ago
  I agree. I also increasingly find myself using bat, ripgrep, eza etc even with zsh.
pdimitar 3y ago
A commendable effort but to me they are not going far enough. I'd honestly just start over, implement what seems to make sense and only add extra stuff on top if there's a huge demand for it + that demand is well-argumented for. I get why they don't want to do that and I respect their project a lot. But to me imitating this ancient toolchain is just perpetuating a problem.
- appplication 3y ago
  Agree, I had the same thought reading the above comments. GNU is not holy correctness, it’s a first draft that worked well. Opinionated reimplementation with divergence isn’t a bad thing.
  - jchw 3y ago
    Trust me, if we were all starting from scratch, I would agree. However, I am not ready to drop compatibility with GNU coreutils at the moment.
    - pdimitar 3y ago
      Nobody is forcing you to. We can have alternative stacks for as long as we like. Any new stack is strictly opt-in.
      - jchw 3y ago
        I mention "GNU compatibility" for Bun Shell specifically because there are some incredibly commonly used GNU extensions even in the JS ecosystem like mkdir -p, and yes, even the GNU specific find extensions. I don't think we need total compatibility for everything. However, OTOH, Nushell is targeting being the default system shell, not just something off to the side. They could decide to be not GNU compatible and it's not like I'd complain, but I agree with their choice to be GNU compatible 100%, and it makes me more likely to consider it on my own machines. I don't feel as though anyone is forcing me to do anything though, that's definitely not the tone I intended to convey.
- 3y ago

Aerbil313 3y ago

Yeah, this is nice but also sad. GNU coreutils is ancient at this point. I know this is probably critical to get user share for nushell and not enough dev resources etc. but I’d wish they were innovating on this front too with simpler and less bloated coreutils, as they are already completely changing the shell paradigm.

lf-non 3y ago
It doesn't have to be an either-or proposition Yes? People are free to experiment with alternative cli utils which are not burdened by backward compatibility while nushell also remains easily adoptable by users who are accustomed to coreutils.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  Well yeah, but there’s always something to forcing people to move on to the next thing. I know I’m asking for too much.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  I agree. I’ve written about this before but this is what murex (1) does. It reimplements some of coreutils where there are benefits in doing so (eg sed, grep etc -like parsing of lists that are in formats other than flat lines of text. Such as JSON arrays) Mutex does this by having these utilities named slightly different to their POSIX counterparts. So you can use all of the existing CLI tools completely but additionally have a bunch of new stuff too. Far too many alt shells these days try to replace coreutils and that just creates friction in my opinion. 1. https://murex.rocks https://murex.rocks
abhinavk 3y ago
I agree. I also increasingly find myself using bat, ripgrep, eza etc even with zsh.

pdimitar 3y ago

A commendable effort but to me they are not going far enough. I'd honestly just start over, implement what seems to make sense and only add extra stuff on top if there's a huge demand for it + that demand is well-argumented for. I get why they don't want to do that and I respect their project a lot. But to me imitating this ancient toolchain is just perpetuating a problem.

appplication 3y ago
Agree, I had the same thought reading the above comments. GNU is not holy correctness, it’s a first draft that worked well. Opinionated reimplementation with divergence isn’t a bad thing.
- jchw 3y ago
  Trust me, if we were all starting from scratch, I would agree. However, I am not ready to drop compatibility with GNU coreutils at the moment.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    Nobody is forcing you to. We can have alternative stacks for as long as we like. Any new stack is strictly opt-in.
    - jchw 3y ago
      I mention "GNU compatibility" for Bun Shell specifically because there are some incredibly commonly used GNU extensions even in the JS ecosystem like mkdir -p, and yes, even the GNU specific find extensions. I don't think we need total compatibility for everything. However, OTOH, Nushell is targeting being the default system shell, not just something off to the side. They could decide to be not GNU compatible and it's not like I'd complain, but I agree with their choice to be GNU compatible 100%, and it makes me more likely to consider it on my own machines. I don't feel as though anyone is forcing me to do anything though, that's definitely not the tone I intended to convey.
3y ago