4 ms·

I genuinely wish there was an alternative that could gain enough traction to reach critical mass and hopefully start shipping with operating systems. I've never

I genuinely wish there was an alternative that could gain enough traction to reach critical mass and hopefully start shipping with operating systems. I've never bothered to learn bash because it was always so damned confusing, and I just couldn't get over the idiosyncrasies when playing around with it. I wouldn't mind putting in time to learn something new and actually user-friendly.

fiatjaf 12y ago
Have you looked at fish? It is in the package repositories everywhere, I think.
- doomrobo 12y ago
  Even so, the single most attractive trait of bash is that it ships with almost everything. If I have to write a script on a machine with no internet, then bash is the only option. This its strongest source of staying power.
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    You would likely have a regular sh, be it bash in "sh-mode" or a real sh, plus likely csh and maybe ksh. You'd probably also have awk, and maybe even perl.
    - dijit 12y ago
      perl is everywhere, but like python, it's power is in it's modules. and those are not everywhere.
- doomrobo 12y ago
  I actually gave fish a try after you recommended it. I can't use it in my workflow :(. Virtualenv has a bash script to initiate the environment and fish's incompatibility with bash scripts makes it impossible for me to work with it.
  - fiatjaf 12y ago
    virtualenv deployments come with a fish specific script, it is at `venv/bin/activate.fish`. You can source it with `. venv/bin/activate.fish`
    - doomrobo 12y ago
      Awesome! thanks
seanp2k2 12y ago
Well, if you do ever want to learn the "finer points" of bash, http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/doku.php http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/doku.php and http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide have tons and tons of great info.
s_kilk 12y ago
Having played with it for about an hour, I think Xonsh might actually be that alternative.
bishc 12y ago
This is quite apropos, as just last week I released a little language called 'bish' designed to overcome exactly this issue. It compiles to bash for portability, but has more modern and familiar syntax. See https://github.com/tdenniston/bish https://github.com/tdenniston/bish for the repo and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9166386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9166386 for some previous discussion. The language is still brand new and under active development. It's not stable yet.
fastviper 12y ago
.. you say a shell command line should be user friendly? What kind of user would use command line? We are all bofhs here. Also some of us are being paid to write bash scripts. I'm for example forced into bash because of AIX server. Learing bash is fun and profitable...
- cstoner 12y ago
  > I'm for example forced into bash because of AIX server. What? Consider yourself lucky. All of my AIX was ksh. If I wanted to be especially rebellious, I would use ksh93.

fiatjaf 12y ago

Have you looked at fish? It is in the package repositories everywhere, I think.

doomrobo 12y ago
Even so, the single most attractive trait of bash is that it ships with almost everything. If I have to write a script on a machine with no internet, then bash is the only option. This its strongest source of staying power.
- seanp2k2 12y ago
  You would likely have a regular sh, be it bash in "sh-mode" or a real sh, plus likely csh and maybe ksh. You'd probably also have awk, and maybe even perl.
  - dijit 12y ago
    perl is everywhere, but like python, it's power is in it's modules. and those are not everywhere.
doomrobo 12y ago
I actually gave fish a try after you recommended it. I can't use it in my workflow :(. Virtualenv has a bash script to initiate the environment and fish's incompatibility with bash scripts makes it impossible for me to work with it.
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  virtualenv deployments come with a fish specific script, it is at `venv/bin/activate.fish`. You can source it with `. venv/bin/activate.fish`
  - doomrobo 12y ago
    Awesome! thanks

seanp2k2 12y ago

Well, if you do ever want to learn the "finer points" of bash, http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/doku.php http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/doku.php and http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide have tons and tons of great info.

s_kilk 12y ago

Having played with it for about an hour, I think Xonsh might actually be that alternative.

bishc 12y ago

This is quite apropos, as just last week I released a little language called 'bish' designed to overcome exactly this issue. It compiles to bash for portability, but has more modern and familiar syntax. See https://github.com/tdenniston/bish https://github.com/tdenniston/bish for the repo and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9166386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9166386 for some previous discussion. The language is still brand new and under active development. It's not stable yet.

fastviper 12y ago

.. you say a shell command line should be user friendly? What kind of user would use command line? We are all bofhs here. Also some of us are being paid to write bash scripts. I'm for example forced into bash because of AIX server. Learing bash is fun and profitable...

cstoner 12y ago
> I'm for example forced into bash because of AIX server. What? Consider yourself lucky. All of my AIX was ksh. If I wanted to be especially rebellious, I would use ksh93.