Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:08:48 -0500 From: Dan D Niles <dan@more.net> To: Malcolm Kay <malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Switched to Bash and Comparison of Shells Message-ID: <1276535328.14498.37.camel@jane.spg.more.net> In-Reply-To: <201006111146.42080.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> References: <1276190395.5437.53.camel@jane.spg.more.net> <201006111146.42080.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Fri, 2010-06-11 at 11:46 +0930, Malcolm Kay wrote: > On Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:49 am, Dan D Niles wrote: > > I had been using csh/tcsh for 20 years and I just switched to > > bash. The recent discussion about the differences between the > > shells prompted me to take another look at bash. I thought > > I'd share my perception of the differences between tcsh and > > bash. > > It seems to me that it is a little late in the day to be changing > to bash. Some well known Linux distributions are beginning to see > that some non-posix features of bash can create difficulties. I > believe recent releases of Ubuntu use dash as the prefered > shell, and it looks as though Debian will be going the same way. > Dash is supposed to be a modern, faster and cleaner > implementation of sh -- if installed through FBSD ports it has > the same man page as sh. For an interactive shell, it doesn't really matter if it has non-POSIX features or not. For scripts it is a different story. If you use non-POSIX features in a script, it becomes less portable. I switched my interactive shell not my scripting shell. The problem with Linux distros is they replaced /bin/sh with bash. I imagine that non-POSIX features started to creep into their shell scripts and they became less portable. I agree with Linux distros using a POSIX shell for /bin/sh instead of bash. Ubuntu has been using dash as of at least 9.04, BTW.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?1276535328.14498.37.camel>