Re: csh vs. (ba|(pd)?k)sh [From: Re: Thanks]

[Dan Harnett <danh@wzrd.com>]

On Sun, Aug 26, 2001 at 03:19:02PM +0200, Denis A. Doroshenko wrote:
> yeah... i may be repeating myself, but ESC and !! is especially
> incomfortable. set -o vi (for a man using vi editor) and tab complete
> just rocks. why should i crypt something at command line with !! (i know
> there is a way to substitute substrings in previous commands and run the
> result in csh, but my God, it is so cryptic!)?

With tcsh, you can also use tab completion.  Is it standard with every
csh-like shell?  No.  Same with tab completion in pdksh.  The standard
way with ksh-like shells is to use ESC-\.  For someone who likes vi, you
should not find hitting the ESC key to be uncomfortable.  If you have
worked in multiple environments and find yourself using different ksh
variants, you might find that conditioning yourself to hit the tab key
is very cumbersome.  Also, in a minimal environment where your keyboard
interface might not have ESC and CTRL keys, csh's command history and
substitution features can be a godsend.

> yes, they make, but for me pdksh is enough, relatively compact, fast not
> overwighted with features to include the whole universe into command
> line shell...

Some people say the same thing about csh.

> heh... but the answer is not uncloaked... why csh is the root's shell?

Simply put, if you don't like it, no one is forcing you to use it.  In
fact, you don't even have to change root's shell to avoid it.  Single
user mode usually asks you for which shell you want to use, and defaults
to /bin/sh (ksh).  /usr/bin/su has a nice little -m option which lets
you change your privileges without changing your shell or environment.
So, why is leaving root's shell as /bin/csh a problem?

--
Dan Harnett <danh@wzrd.com>