*BSD News Article 83968


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From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Serious brain damage in /bin/sh for FreeBSD 2.1.5
Date: Sun, 01 Dec 1996 03:52:08 -0800
Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
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Message-ID: <32A17168.446B9B3D@FreeBSD.org>
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To: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@freebsd.org>

John S. Dyson wrote:
> 
> Stan Brown wrote:
> >
> >         I realize all Berkley centric people think the workd revolves around
> > csh, but the rest of us don't.
> >
> Well, I do as much BSD development as almost anyone...  I hate csh.

He's also wrong about the Berkeley people.  csh may have originated
there, but nobody in his right mind that I know of actually writes shell
scripts in it.  There is only one standard way of writing shell scripts
which will actually run reliably on a large number of UN*X machines, and
that's to write them in pure sh.  I would certainly never write a
mainstream shell script in anything else.

As to ksh, I think that our /bin/sh doesn't even come close so it's hard
to argue that its author even intended in making "ash" a ksh clone. 
More likely this was simple creeping featurism, and I for one wouldn't
argue at all if features like emacs/vi command line and history editing
were ripped right back out again.  If I want that kind of comfy
environment, I'll use bash (and I do).  /bin/sh should be a lean, mean,
standard by-the-book bourne shell and that's it.
-- 
- Jordan Hubbard
  President, FreeBSD Project