Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
[...]

I can see a point where people use for interactive use other shells
than for programming; like tcsh (interactively) and bash (programming),
because of the powerful features tcsh supports. Since the increase of
interactive features supported by the shells that are typically used
for programming I prefer to have the same shell with same syntax and
features for both, and to be able to pass code from one application
context to the other.

Indeed.  I spent several years using tcsh interactively (because it had
a few interactive features that I found convenient) and bash for writing
scripts (previously I had actually written *gasp* csh and tcsh scripts).
Eventually I found that using a single shell for both was easier, and
that bash's interactive features are about as good as tcsh's.  (And I
can write complex nested commands on one line, something I probably
wouldn't have attempted in [t]csh even if it were possible.)  I haven't
looked back.

zsh has some nice features, but I haven't learned it well enough to
consider switching.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
Working, but not speaking, for Medtronic
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */