Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:26:56 -0700 From: Matthew Hunt <mph@astro.caltech.edu> To: Craig Johnston <caj@lfn.org> Cc: freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: root's shell Message-ID: <19990601132656.A21962@wopr.caltech.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.990601151054.76B-100000@jane.lfn.org>; from Craig Johnston on Tue, Jun 01, 1999 at 03:15:35PM -0500 References: <19990601130714.B21176@wopr.caltech.edu> <Pine.GSO.3.96.990601151054.76B-100000@jane.lfn.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tue, Jun 01, 1999 at 03:15:35PM -0500, Craig Johnston wrote: > I was being somewhat (only somewhat) facetious. Really, csh is > a bug. > > What mailing list do you think would be most appropriate for this? > I couldn't quite decide. Well, first of all you should explain your problems with csh. It is not well suited for scripting, but what in what sense is it broken as an interactive shell? I think there is roughly no chance in hell that it's going to change, so I can't really suggest where else you should take it. > Right -- but why do we get csh in the base system? Why not ksh? > Why not give root sh to start with and relegate csh to ports? I think the prevailing thought is that any Unix system should have a working, but perhaps minimal, sh and csh. Furthermore, we want these to be maintained by the FreeBSD project. The benefits of us maintaining a more complicated shell, like ksh, are pretty minimal when you can install it yourself, and it is not necessary for any scripts that come with the system. > Well, IMO it should go because it could be in ports and root's shell > should be compatible with the LCD, which is the bourne shell. Why > on earth give root, and only root (by default) a broken shell? Again, why is csh "broken" as an interactive shell? I don't like it either, but I only consider it broken for programming reasons and I happen to prefer a shell whose syntax matches my scripts. Really, a lot of people *do* like csh/tcsh for interactive use. > Yes, changing it is easy, but if most people change it (which I am not > sure is the case but wouldn't bet against it) then why not change the > default? Tradition? You have a slim chance of convincing anyone to change the default to sh. It's a religious issue, and inertia says you maintain the status quo. You have zero chance of convincing anyone to bring ksh into the tree, which is what you really want. Matt -- Matthew Hunt <mph@astro.caltech.edu> * Stay close to the Vorlon. http://www.pobox.com/~mph/ * To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19990601132656.A21962>