Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 14:02:21 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@secnetix.de> To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why is csh tcsh? This can be a bad thing... Message-ID: <200108251202.OAA54973@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <20010824212042.A86744@xor.obsecurity.org>
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Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 11:10:53PM -0500, Matthew D. Fuller wrote:
> > So yes, there's a difference. But, on the flip side, I think that
> > the fact that it's been this long without anybody screaming majorly
> > (after the initial shakedown, of course) kinda sums it up.
Probably because it's just too late. During the initial
discussion, the voices pro and contra were about 50:50 (at
least that was my impression), and finally the pro ones
succeeded, probably because they had more "weight" (this
is not a democracy anyway). After the change was done and
committed, chances to revert it were even smaller.
I'm well aware that this discussion now is probably very
useless. I'd like to write down my concerns anyway, just
to show that there _is_ indeed "anybody screaming".
If you don't want to read my nagging, stop reading now. :-)
I'm not so much opposed to having tcsh in the base, and
even in /bin (I'm not using it anyway). Sure, there is
the "bloat" argument, but we also have perl in the base,
which is much more of a bloat. (Perl is another story.)
_But_ my vote would be for still having a "real" csh in
/bin, additionally. (And don't tell me that tcsh is a
real csh -- it's not, see below.) Those who voted for
replacing csh with tcsh probably haven't really used csh
as their login shell recently, otherwise they would have
noticed that it is not a full replacement.
> There are differences in defaults, yes, but are there differences
> which can't be fixed by setting options? That's what's being asked.
I think that a /bin/csh should behave like a traditional
/bin/csh by default already, without having to go through
the (large!) tcsh manpage in search for the right options.
FWIW, a few csh users have complained to me that the user
interface behaves completely different, e.g. filename
completion, entering of tabs, certain types of history
expansions ("!2foo") etc., and they haven't been able to
make it behave like a real csh using tcsh options. (If
someone knows, for example, how to make it accept a single
"Esc" for filename completion without a delay, please let
me know.)
I will probably just install the 4.4BSD csh over /bin/csh
to get rid of those complaints.
I for myself don't really care much, I don't use csh or
tcsh (anymore). In singleuser mode I definitely prefer
/bin/sh over those nowadays. But I think that users who
want a "real" (i.e. traditional) csh should be able to get
one, without having to get used to a user interface that's
different from all other systems (Solaris, Tru64, ...).
Sure, I could install it as a port (after I have found out
that such a port exists -- it's not documented anywhere),
but installing or copying the port into /bin isn't exactly
a clean solution.
Not having a real /bin/csh on a BSD system is like removing
/usr/games. Sacrilege. ;-)
Just my 2 Euro Cents.
Regards
Oliver
PS: Should we redirect this to -chat? Or perhaps better
yet, to private mail. (No Reply-To set, so it's your
decision, but please let me know because I'm not normally
looking at the -chat folder.)
--
Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co KG, Oettingenstr. 2, 80538 München
Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author
and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way.
"All that we see or seem is just a dream within a dream" (E. A. Poe)
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