Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 09:22:07 +0100 From: Dominic Mitchell <Dom.Mitchell@palmerharvey.co.uk> To: Doug <Doug@gorean.org> Cc: Dominic Mitchell <Dom.Mitchell@palmerharvey.co.uk>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: What to tell to Linux-centric people?! Message-ID: <19990730092207.A85066@voodoo.pandhm.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <37A0BDCE.B37C489A@gorean.org>; from Doug on Thu, Jul 29, 1999 at 01:47:10PM -0700 References: <xzp7lnm5v3x.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <Pine.BSF.4.05.9907271250100.1387-100000@dt011n65.san.rr.com> <19990728094335.D16017@voodoo.pandhm.co.uk> <37A0BDCE.B37C489A@gorean.org>
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On Thu, Jul 29, 1999 at 01:47:10PM -0700, Doug wrote:
> Dominic Mitchell wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 27, 1999 at 01:00:17PM -0700, Doug wrote:
> > > What features specifically do you recommend that we look at other
> > > than those two, and how do they differ from bash? I'm willing to give
> > > another shell a look, but "Use this, it's better" isn't a convincing
> > > argument for me. :)
> >
> > Extended globbing. eg: less [A-Z]*(.) to view all the README files and
> > suchlike in a directory, whilst ignoring things like CVS. Another
> > favorite is "find /sys/*~compile | xargs egrep", which looks in all
> > kernel source directories except the compile tree.
>
> You can do both of these with extglob in Bash. You could also put CVS in
> your GLOBIGNORE variable if you wanted to.
OK, I wasn't aware of that. But can bash do:
* recursive globbing?
* numeric based globbing (ideal for working with MH)?
* date based globbing?
* uid/gid based globbing?
Looking at the bash manual page, I see that it has inherited ksh's
extended globbing, which is useful, but not quite as advanced as zsh's
(bizzare? baroque?) globbing.
> > Programmable completion.
>
> As mentioned, this is coming.
Cool! It'll be interesting to see it when it happens.
It can take a *long* time to get it set up exactly correctly and
understand what you are doing, however. And by the time that you need
to do it again, you've forgotten. :-)
> > You can get implicit tees and cats with redirection syntax. eg:
> > "ls -l > file1 > file2".
>
> Hmmm.. ok, that sounds cool, but personally I dislike adding features to a
> shell that are already present elsewhere.
True. I suppose it's a convenience thing though. I actually find it
quite logical doing it the zsh way...
> > You can turn off csh-style history easily ("setopt nobanghist"). Very
> > important!
>
> 'set +H' Why is it important (to you)?
Because I have cause to use uucp?
> > For new users, if it sees a command beginning with rm and ending in "*",
> > it asks if you're sure. That's gotta be the number one complaint about
> > Unix from DOS people.
>
> Heh... well idiot proofing can be considered a feature.
Sad, but true.
> > Autoloaded functions (load on demand is a better description). I know
> > that ksh and zsh have these, but I don't think bash does.
>
> Hmmm... that sounds interesting, but I don't have so many functions
> defined that keeping them in memory is a burden.
Well, it gets more convenient as your collection grows.
> > One thing I find quite useful is that you can extend the "~user" syntax
> > with your own variables. So, on our web cache machine, I automatically
> > set "squid=/cacheboy/data01/squid" and I can then do "cd ~squid/logs".
>
> You could do the same thing with the 'cdable_vars' shopt, and not have to
> type the ~. :)
Well, that's assuming you're using cd. What happens if you're using
less or any other command?
> > Generally, there are lots of little extensions that make life much
> > easier. I would reccomend looking at:
>
> Ok, I will look at those resources, and probably try zsh out when I get
> some free time. And I'd like to reiterate that I'm not trying to change
> anyone's mind here, just pointing out that a lot of the perceived
> differences that people base their decisions on just don't exist.
There are more differences than you think. A close look of the zsh man
page is definitely in order!
However, at the end of the day, so long as it lets you type in commands
and get on with your job, it doesn't matter which shell you use! (an oft
forgotten point)
--
Dom Mitchell -- Palmer & Harvey McLane -- Unix Systems Administrator
In Mountain View did Larry Wall
Sedately launch a quiet plea:
That DOS, the ancient system, shall
On boxes pleasureless to all
Run Perl though lack they C.
--
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