5 ms·

I'm a self-taught programmer. I've basically been using linux 99% of the time for the past five years, and just have a partition that runs windows if I need it

I'm a self-taught programmer. I've basically been using linux 99% of the time for the past five years, and just have a partition that runs windows if I need it. Funnily enough, the first real programming gig I landed is a full time job doing full stack .NET development, so now it's sort of flipped around. I do miss the command line. I'll have to check this out. I've been looking for a good windows shell replacement.

hetman 12y ago
The other thing worth looking at is the MinGW project. It's pretty easy to get started with the mingw-get package manager (there's an installer you can find here: http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Getting_Started http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Getting_Started). Once you have mintty running as your terminal emulator, and a decent shell like bash, life gets a whole lot easier. The upside is that it's fully native without Cygwin's compatibility layer. The downside is that it won't have as many ported utilities (and probably not as easy to get started with as something like Babun).
- voltagex_ 12y ago
  http://code.google.com/p/mintty/ http://code.google.com/p/mintty/ seems like it still uses cygwin1.dll (or whatever it's called these days). Am I missing something?
  - jeremyjh 12y ago
    Yes, you are missing the MSYS build listed on their download page. It does not use Cygwin. MSYS/Mingw are native ports of the GNU software tools and friends.
Already__Taken 12y ago
You should take a serious look at using powershell, they've aliased a lot of commands to what you expect on linux so you're not completely foreign and it's got a similar workflow mentality you're used to i.e pipe commands. And you can work with .NET natively. That said it is NOT to imitate linux, it's conceptually not the same which is good because Windows isn't either. Here's a 101; commands are `verb-noun -parameter value` these pipe | objects(!) not strings. The first thing you should do is win+R powershell type: get-alias and after that `get-help ls` just drop in powershell wherever you used to calling cmd and see how it goes.
- ygra 12y ago
  Another word of advice: Try to use the pipeline as much as possible. Passing objects through the pipeline is a core concept of PowerShell for a reason. Don't try writing C# with PowerShell syntax (as I see so many people do on Stack Overflow). Some answers I have written on SO that exemplify that: • http://stackoverflow.com/a/7394766/73070 http://stackoverflow.com/a/7394766/73070 • http://stackoverflow.com/a/1046291/73070 http://stackoverflow.com/a/1046291/73070 • http://stackoverflow.com/a/14481495/73070 http://stackoverflow.com/a/14481495/73070
  - doorhammer 12y ago
    I just glanced at the top post you have linked here (I'll definitely take a look at the others later). At first glance it reminds me of unix pipes, clojure's thrush operator, and F#'s pipe forward operator. (they're all different from one another, of course, but the general idea of threading data through pipes/filter/transformations to get what you want) If I'm not totally missing the mark there, and that's the idiomatic way to do things, I'm glad. I really prefer dealing with scripting/command line stuff that way. Really appreciate the information!
- joelthelion 12y ago
  Powershell is a great language. I would love to see unix shells inspired by it. The associated toolset, on the other hand, is clearly not there yet. As soon as you start doing real things with PowerShell, you will hit all sorts of bugs and limitations. Your mileage may vary, of course.
  - Already__Taken 12y ago
    Remoting and signing has been a nightmare to set up on my domain but otherwise so far I'm still having a pleasant experience. Obviously the console itself is the same as cmd's which is terrible. I just work a lot with the ISE open but still looking for a slicker terminal. I've been able to just deploy PS v4.0 across all of my computers I think a lot of the headache comes from trying to use new stuff and seeing windows 7 ship with v2.0 I'm curious what kind of things you're running into, I'm getting quite immersed in using PS all over.

hetman 12y ago

The other thing worth looking at is the MinGW project. It's pretty easy to get started with the mingw-get package manager (there's an installer you can find here: http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Getting_Started http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Getting_Started). Once you have mintty running as your terminal emulator, and a decent shell like bash, life gets a whole lot easier. The upside is that it's fully native without Cygwin's compatibility layer. The downside is that it won't have as many ported utilities (and probably not as easy to get started with as something like Babun).

voltagex_ 12y ago
http://code.google.com/p/mintty/ http://code.google.com/p/mintty/ seems like it still uses cygwin1.dll (or whatever it's called these days). Am I missing something?
- jeremyjh 12y ago
  Yes, you are missing the MSYS build listed on their download page. It does not use Cygwin. MSYS/Mingw are native ports of the GNU software tools and friends.

Already__Taken 12y ago

You should take a serious look at using powershell, they've aliased a lot of commands to what you expect on linux so you're not completely foreign and it's got a similar workflow mentality you're used to i.e pipe commands. And you can work with .NET natively. That said it is NOT to imitate linux, it's conceptually not the same which is good because Windows isn't either. Here's a 101; commands are `verb-noun -parameter value` these pipe | objects(!) not strings. The first thing you should do is win+R powershell type: get-alias and after that `get-help ls` just drop in powershell wherever you used to calling cmd and see how it goes.

ygra 12y ago
Another word of advice: Try to use the pipeline as much as possible. Passing objects through the pipeline is a core concept of PowerShell for a reason. Don't try writing C# with PowerShell syntax (as I see so many people do on Stack Overflow). Some answers I have written on SO that exemplify that: • http://stackoverflow.com/a/7394766/73070 http://stackoverflow.com/a/7394766/73070 • http://stackoverflow.com/a/1046291/73070 http://stackoverflow.com/a/1046291/73070 • http://stackoverflow.com/a/14481495/73070 http://stackoverflow.com/a/14481495/73070
- doorhammer 12y ago
  I just glanced at the top post you have linked here (I'll definitely take a look at the others later). At first glance it reminds me of unix pipes, clojure's thrush operator, and F#'s pipe forward operator. (they're all different from one another, of course, but the general idea of threading data through pipes/filter/transformations to get what you want) If I'm not totally missing the mark there, and that's the idiomatic way to do things, I'm glad. I really prefer dealing with scripting/command line stuff that way. Really appreciate the information!
joelthelion 12y ago
Powershell is a great language. I would love to see unix shells inspired by it. The associated toolset, on the other hand, is clearly not there yet. As soon as you start doing real things with PowerShell, you will hit all sorts of bugs and limitations. Your mileage may vary, of course.
- Already__Taken 12y ago
  Remoting and signing has been a nightmare to set up on my domain but otherwise so far I'm still having a pleasant experience. Obviously the console itself is the same as cmd's which is terrible. I just work a lot with the ISE open but still looking for a slicker terminal. I've been able to just deploy PS v4.0 across all of my computers I think a lot of the headache comes from trying to use new stuff and seeing windows 7 ship with v2.0 I'm curious what kind of things you're running into, I'm getting quite immersed in using PS all over.