http://www.osnews.com/story/15488/Give_your_Fingers_a_Break_with_Unix_Shell_Shortcuts Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:12:07 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?152245 http://osnews.com/thread?152245 "Give your fingers a break with Unix shell shotcuts"?

That sounds painful Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (MechR) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152246 http://osnews.com/thread?152246 Teh , spheller is borken. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (antik) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152284 http://osnews.com/thread?152284 Anyone here prefer zsh over bash? I know zsh has some expanded globbing features, but does it have any missing/modified features that might be annoying to long-time bash users? Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (butters) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152308 http://osnews.com/thread?152308 Does anybody still prefer Korn? Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152309 http://osnews.com/thread?152309 Yes, I do. Most of the guys I work with use tcsh, but I'm considered "old school". Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152311 http://osnews.com/thread?152311 I've only been using *nix for around 20 years and had never heard anyone use the term, "siqil", since I was a printers apprentice in the early 70's as a reference to the shot mark or union label, using this term for the home directory tilde was a surprise. Anybody ever hear that before? Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152313 http://osnews.com/thread?152313 You just can't go wrong with the classics. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152315 http://osnews.com/thread?152315 Same here.

Any big feature do I miss by using ksh instead of bash or zsh? Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (taos) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152319 http://osnews.com/thread?152319 Any big feature do I miss by using ksh instead of bash...?

No, not really. That is, unless you consider bugs to be big features. Or a lack of speed, for that matter. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (eMagius) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152330 http://osnews.com/thread?152330 And what bugs would those be? Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152346 http://osnews.com/thread?152346 $ echo ~
/Users/strike

Well what did you expect? You're reading a write up on shell usage from a freakin Mac user. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kernelpanicked) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152357 http://osnews.com/thread?152357 sigil, not siqil.
See http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=sigil&go_button=Search
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil_(computer_programming) Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ahalsey) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152377 http://osnews.com/thread?152377 what if BSD used BASH by default?

Lack of speed in shell scripts tolerable, lack of features or lack of understanding? Fatal!!!

TCSH -> obscure
ZSH -> lack of features
KSH -> unmaintained

FISH? Mmmmm.... something different :-)

I prefer BASH. Well written, easy to learn, well supported, many features.

Why do we still speak about the others? If you can't do it on BASH use a scripting language. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fithisux) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152379 http://osnews.com/thread?152379 Work servers have ksh. So I tried using pdksh at home. Seems it does not speak UTF-8. Back to bash. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jziegler) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152387 http://osnews.com/thread?152387 "TCSH -> obscure"

Maybe. I'll give you that one.

"ZSH -> lack of features"

You've got to be completely insane. Me thinks you've never read the docs on this one.

"KSH -> unmaintained"

Since when? Not only is pdksh maintained, but the pdksh used on both OpenBSD and NetBSD are fully maintained and get new features quite often.

"Why do we still speak about the others? If you can't do it on BASH use a scripting language."

Because I'm damn well not installing a non-standard shell on my BSD or Solaris boxes just to write scripts. This may ne a shocker for you, but Linux is not the only system around and bash is hardly a standard on any other UNIX/UNIX-like system. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kernelpanicked) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152397 http://osnews.com/thread?152397 Personnaly ksh annoys me because to go back in the command history in vi mode, you can only use Esc+K whereas in bash you can use both the up arrow key and Esc+K.

tcsh crappy vi mode annoys me too. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renox) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152400 http://osnews.com/thread?152400 Understand, but I am a vi person :-)

For me it's easier to hit Esc-k than up-arrow, because while Esc is almost always at the up-left corner, up-arrow is at different position/distance on different keybords (e.g. desktop v.s. laptop). Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (taos) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152409 http://osnews.com/thread?152409 I love zsh. Favourite feature: command, path, damn-near-everything completion. Slower and bigger than [batc]sh maybe, but on a 500+MHz plus box, it still flies. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152424 http://osnews.com/thread?152424 tcsh crappy vi mode annoys me too.

What are you talking about? A true unix user uses vi, not vim. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 01:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Babi Asu) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152442 http://osnews.com/thread?152442 At work I have to use ksh for scripting. It's 99% the same as bash, but arrays are a huge quagmire in ksh, and don't get me started on the 'set' command. I don't dislike scripting in ksh, but in the few ways that bash and ksh differ, I prefer bash.

I cannot _stand_ ksh as an interactive shell. I'm a huge vi fan, but it just does not make sense for command editing. I developed muscle memory on bash, with tab completion and up/down-arrows for history, and anything else feels incredibly awkward. At least seven times per day I want to kick down the door to the machine room and put a large calibre round through the freakin build machine that doesn't have bash installed.

Ahhh... I feel much better now... it's been a long day. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 02:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (butters) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152446 http://osnews.com/thread?152446 I beg to differ. Vi is great, but vim is better. It has filetype plugins, syntax highlighting (in color!), and the "visual mode" that I find quicker than using marks. The are other little things that vim does better than vi, like backspacing through line breaks in insert mode. Mouse support comes in handy during code browsing or "sparse editing" (if you get what I mean). I have both ctags and cscope integrated into vim, as well as LaTeX.

I have no problem using vi as long as I'm being paid for my time. You'd need to pay me significantly more to use Emacs, though. I'd rather use Gedit...

Shells and editors are very personal things. If you use them all day, the little things can drive you nuts. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 02:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (butters) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152473 http://osnews.com/thread?152473 "Does anybody still prefer Korn?"
Yes. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 04:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152474 http://osnews.com/thread?152474 "lack of understanding"
yes, because they're all so very different...no wait, they aren't.

"TCSH -> obscure"
So?

"ZSH -> lack of features"
Wrong.

"KSH -> unmaintained"
Wrong.
How many new features does a shell need anyway?

"Why do we still speak about the others?"

Because people like them?

"If you can't do it on BASH use a scripting language."

If your scripts aren't compatible with POSIX /bin/sh you're doing something wrong. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 04:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152476 http://osnews.com/thread?152476 "Personnaly ksh annoys me because to go back in the command history in vi mode, you can only use Esc+K"

What are you talking about? I've always been able to use the arrow keys for history in (pd)ksh. Maybe you're thinking of csh? Tue, 15 Aug 2006 04:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152499 http://osnews.com/thread?152499 Agreed. I've never had a problem with the arrow keys not working in vi mode. In emacs mode it requires a slight bit of hackery but still no big deal. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 05:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kernelpanicked) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152521 http://osnews.com/thread?152521 I love zsh as well. It has an enormous amount of neat features and is very powerful. For a great starting point to see what you can do with zsh, check out this guy's dotfiles:

http://strcat.neessen.net/dotfiles/#zsh

Take your time and go through all the files; they're fairly well commented. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (CrimsonScythe) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152546 http://osnews.com/thread?152546 >I am a vi person :-)

Me too, but I still prefer the up arrow against Esc+K: one key instead of two.
For me the shell should provide both: bash does, ksh doesn't which is annoying, I don't know about zsh.. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renox) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152547 http://osnews.com/thread?152547 I'm not talking about vi vs vim, I'm talking about the feature of the interpreters, searching what you want in the history with Esc+/, etc which can use either vi-like shortcuts or emacs-like shortcuts.

tcsh provide a good emacs-like mode but a crappy vi-like mode (at least the tcsh (old) version that we have on our Solaris servers). Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renox) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152549 http://osnews.com/thread?152549 No I'm talking about the ksh installed on our Solaris 8 servers, I don't know exactly which version of ksh it is.. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renox) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152567 http://osnews.com/thread?152567 Does anybody still prefer Korn?

Yep. Learning ksh is still the best bet if you work with one or more of the big boys like Solaris or AIX. Just try to convince a big company to roll out zsh on all their machines - I dare you :-) Tue, 15 Aug 2006 14:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tyr.) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152574 http://osnews.com/thread?152574 Ah... that's different, never mind. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 14:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152575 http://osnews.com/thread?152575 Gibberish, you must mean /usr/share? /usr/spool? Tue, 15 Aug 2006 15:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sphinx) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152631 http://osnews.com/thread?152631 Many of the old-school "true UNIX users" that I've met over the years have a severe case of tunnel vision and don't yet realize that there's more to life than the smallish set of vanilla tools which come bundled with the OS.

Some of those tools are admittedly excellent, but some of them have been improved or even superseded by open source variants, and some of them were fine 20 years ago and still work but are showing their age today.

Some examples: I use Midnight Commander for doing file management on Solaris, I use either NEdit or mcedit (*not* vi) to edit source, I use tools like exuberant ctags and Eskil to navigate through and compare code, and I use DDD to debug stuff instead of command-line gdb (with or w/o the TUI).

Why? For me, those things are far more productive than the normal cd/cp/mc/rm/whatever commands, vi, traditional grep searches, and the raw debugger.

I don't question folks who use traditional utilities for their work, and I can still use them in a pinch if I have to, but I question those who suggest that I regress back to that level when I've already moved on to a set of tools which I'm more comfortable with. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rcsteiner) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152632 http://osnews.com/thread?152632 I work for a largeish company, and their Sun boxes all have bash and Perl and them (as far as I can tell), which I found to be a pleasant surprise. They default to ksh, but it doesn't take long to type "bash". :-) Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rcsteiner) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152634 http://osnews.com/thread?152634 Im a huge fan of korn. Im sure that bash provides most (if not all) of the same functionality but i always seem to be faster with korn and vi mode.

.adam. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (adapt) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152637 http://osnews.com/thread?152637 Try `set -o emacs`

Obviously you loose the functionality of the ownage that is vi mode, but you can use the arrows after that (at least on NetBSD) Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (adapt) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?153493 http://osnews.com/thread?153493 No, I'm a vi guy not emacs (I never manage to remember the equivalent of Esc+/ search in history with emacs mode), I use Esc+K instead of the up arrow, but it is a bit stupid IMHO: two keys instead of one for a very common action.. Fri, 18 Aug 2006 06:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renox) Comments