Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 15:34:58 -0800 From: Studded <Studded@gorean.org> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@mat.net> Cc: Brian Feldman <green@zone.syracuse.net>, "Dag-Erling C. =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sm=F8rgrav?=" <dag-erli@ifi.uio.no>, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sh and ~ expansion Message-ID: <3633B5A2.F1068A0F@gorean.org> References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9810251621250.375-100000@picnic.mat.net>
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And so it begins... Chuck Robey wrote: > Doug, think about this ... sh is used universally because it's the > lowest common denominator, and all scripts are done that way. Any > change to our default 'sh' must, first and foremost, work with > distributed shell scripts. Ok, WHICH version of sh do you want to maintain compatability with? I can think of 3 off hand. The original version of the Bourne shell which no one is compatible with anymore, the "original + BSD'isms" that we have now, or the "sysv'ish" version which is favored by sun. There is also the sysv'ish verion favored by AT&T, but that one is not used very extensively any more. > Posix compatibility has nearly nothing at > all to do with that, and bash is an extremely poor choice for that. > > Posix compatibility in this case is a buzzword only, and not a goal to > be considered as good. I thought that the whole point of posix was to provide standards that all platforms could use to avoid the exact miasma I described above? Also, as I mentioned previously the general trend that I've been able to identify is towards a posix sh implementation. However as all such things these kinds of trends move slowly, and tend to wander a bit before they settle in. > General sh compatibility is the only touchstone > here. I submit that there is no such thing currently, if there ever was. Which is why I suggest posix compliance as a goal, rather than trying to chase some subjective (and essentially fictionalized) "general sh compatibility." > Pdksh happens to hold a position close (but not, as Tor Egge > pointed out, completely) sh compatible, so it could be at least > considered as a candidate. Bash, unfortunately, isn't in that league. Why not? What specifically does Bash do or not do that makes it incompatible with your idea of sh? And remember, my proposal was to use Bash in posix mode, AKA Bash called as sh. Finally, this is one of those holy wars that I really wasn't interested in touching off, namely the "My shell is better than your shell" bit. I'm sure that all of you pdksh people are happy with your shell, and more power to you. But if we're going to seriously consider replacing sh we need hard data to work with, not generalizations. -- *** Chief Operations Officer, DALnet IRC network *** To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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