Re: Switching from tcsh to bash as an interactive shell

From: Stephane CHAZELAS (this.address_at_is.invalid)
Date: 09/15/04

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    Date: 15 Sep 2004 11:48:37 GMT

    2004-09-13, 17:36(+02), Tristan Miller:
    [...]
    > For about ten years I've been using tcsh as my command-line shell and bash
    > as my programming shell. I'm finally getting fed up with the disparity of
    > the syntax and so have decided to switch to bash for both tasks.
    >
    > Anyone care to clue me in as to some of the neato features bash has over
    > tcsh for command-line use? Are there any cool things I should look into
    > when setting up the equivalent of my .tcsh and .login files for the first
    > time? Any time-saving tricks or shortcuts I might otherwise overlook from
    > ten years of tcsh blinders?
    [...]

    There's not much point in switching from tcsh to bash for
    interactive use.

    bash doesn't have more interactive features than tcsh. You're
    likely to feel frustrated. bash is useful as a (mostly) POSIX
    conformant shell to interpret POSIX scripts.

    zsh is the most obvious way to go. Many zsh features (in bash
    also but to a lesser extent) were borrowed from tcsh, so that
    the transition from tcsh should be smoother (it even has a csh
    look-alike mode).
    zsh syntax is more consistent than bash or ksh's.
    zsh is more user friendly than bash or ksh.
    zsh appears to be better documented (see the "info" pages for
    the reference manual and http://zsh.sunsite.dk/Guide/ for the
    /friendly/ user guide.
    it has a responsive user mailing list where the developers are
    very active.
    And overall, it has many, many more amazing features than any
    other shell (globbing, completion, key-binding and a bunch of
    neat little tools being the main ones).

    (note that zsh is not POSIX conformant because it fixed many
    awkwardnesses in the POSIX specification but it has a
    compatibility mode so that it can interpret most POSIX
    conformant scripts) 

    -- 
Stephane
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