5 ms·

I agree that there are a lot of gotchas, but how would you have a system that's anywhere near this powerful without them?

by Shish2k 14y ago

winter_blue 14y ago
> but how would you have a system that's anywhere near this powerful without them? The arcane UX that POSIX gives us has no connection or correlation whatsoever with the power of the system. For instance, an enhanced IPython shell alone would be 10x better than bash. You wouldn't loose any power in this manner. In fact, I think it would be good if thought about or reflected on what exactly "power" is. IMO, it's programmability / script-ability. And Python (again, imo) is a much better language than bash -- hence a shell based on it would deliver a far better UX than bash ever would.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  You mean similar to what Smalltalk Workstations or Lisp Machines used to offer?
- ajross 14y ago
  And yet... serious Python hackers aren't using an enhanced IPython shell. Basically no one is using anything but bash, and even the contrarians aren't going any farther than zsh. This despite the fact that very few people who use these shells ever both to write scripts in them. Certainly people could learn "better" interactive shells. Yet they don't. Clearly the Bourne shell and its descendents must have been doing something right.
  - jfb 14y ago
    "Born on third, thought they hit a triple."
    - ajross 14y ago
      "Show me the money."
- peterwwillis 14y ago
  Would you concede Perl to be a better language than Bash? If so, have a look at 'psh'. It's a Perl shell that nobody uses. The language has nothing to do with why someone picks a shell. They just get used to something, it becomes good enough, and they get on with life. We don't need the most powerful, the most flexible, the most efficient thing. We just need something simple that works. Bash works, so stop nit-picking.
  - jfb 14y ago
    The ubiquity of POSIX sh has nothing to do with technical worth and everything to do with network effects. Should people stop being irritated by bad software because it works, for some definition of the term works? I would hope not.

I agree that there are a lot of gotchas, but how would you have a system that's anywhere near this powerful without them?

by Shish2k 14y ago

I agree that there are a lot of gotchas, but how would you have a system that's anywhere near this powerful without them?

winter_blue 14y ago

> but how would you have a system that's anywhere near this powerful without them? The arcane UX that POSIX gives us has no connection or correlation whatsoever with the power of the system. For instance, an enhanced IPython shell alone would be 10x better than bash. You wouldn't loose any power in this manner. In fact, I think it would be good if thought about or reflected on what exactly "power" is. IMO, it's programmability / script-ability. And Python (again, imo) is a much better language than bash -- hence a shell based on it would deliver a far better UX than bash ever would.

pjmlp 14y ago
You mean similar to what Smalltalk Workstations or Lisp Machines used to offer?
ajross 14y ago
And yet... serious Python hackers aren't using an enhanced IPython shell. Basically no one is using anything but bash, and even the contrarians aren't going any farther than zsh. This despite the fact that very few people who use these shells ever both to write scripts in them. Certainly people could learn "better" interactive shells. Yet they don't. Clearly the Bourne shell and its descendents must have been doing something right.
- jfb 14y ago
  "Born on third, thought they hit a triple."
  - ajross 14y ago
    "Show me the money."
peterwwillis 14y ago
Would you concede Perl to be a better language than Bash? If so, have a look at 'psh'. It's a Perl shell that nobody uses. The language has nothing to do with why someone picks a shell. They just get used to something, it becomes good enough, and they get on with life. We don't need the most powerful, the most flexible, the most efficient thing. We just need something simple that works. Bash works, so stop nit-picking.
- jfb 14y ago
  The ubiquity of POSIX sh has nothing to do with technical worth and everything to do with network effects. Should people stop being irritated by bad software because it works, for some definition of the term works? I would hope not.