Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:48:09 -0500 (CDT) From: Craig Johnston <caj@lfn.org> To: Matthew Hunt <mph@astro.caltech.edu> Cc: freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: root's shell Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.990601153913.477A-100000@jane.lfn.org> In-Reply-To: <19990601132656.A21962@wopr.caltech.edu>
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On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Matthew Hunt wrote: > 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? It's not well suited to scripting and it's hard to draw a line between scripting and interactive use if you use the shell fully. It's broken because it's not a superset of the bourne shell. Which would be fine with me if it had any appeal other than job control. csh just seems like a gratuitously broken sh with job control to me. > > 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. You pretty much summed up my reasons. Sucks for scripting, and why use a different shell interactively? > > 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. Actually, I'd be fine with csh just going away. One less shell in the tree and people could bring in whatever they wanted from ports. I don't have any real attachment to ksh except that it's a bourne shell superset with job control. Obviously bash would be out of the question. Csh just strikes me as having no real reason to exist. Except of course, tradition. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
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