

Ask HN: What's your favorite shell? - snihalani

Hi, I am a bash user and I am looking for better shells. What's your favorite shell? Share your .xxxxrc file if you can. 
Thanks.
======
J_Darnley
cmd.exe

Yes really! I prefer its for loops over those of bash: filenames with spaces
are no problem . I prefer they way it assembles environment variables: it is
easy to put quotes and spaces in them. Tab completion is better: again
filenames with spaces plus looping through matches (which I have just
discovered bash can do too).

A set of unix/GNU tools does improve it further. I'm just sorry that it costs
so much money.

~~~
jfaucett
is this a joke? I think it is. But anyway, cmd.exe is, to put it mildly, crap
compared to any other shell. When were filenames with spaces ever a good idea?

try writing your own server with cmd.exe (bash can do it in 164 lines see:
[https://github.com/sayanriju/Tiny-Bash-
Server/blob/master/us...](https://github.com/sayanriju/Tiny-Bash-
Server/blob/master/usr/bin/tinybashserver) ).

------
antidoh
bash

Nothing special in my .bashrc, just whatever came with lubuntu. Here are the
only interesting tweaks. The prompt is two lines, first line = $? from the
previous command, then some normal stuff; second line is whatever you type for
a command, allows triple clicking and just get the command with no prompt
cruft.

    
    
      ...
      if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
          PS1="\[\033[01;32m\]\$?] ${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;34m\]\u\[\033[01;32m\]@\h\[\033[00m\] \[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\] \$\n"
      else
          PS1="\$?] ${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h \w \$\n"
      fi
      unset color_prompt force_color_prompt
      ...
      export PAGER=~/bin/vimpager
    

My .inputrc, allows any readline enabled prog like pgsql to have command line
editing and completion:

    
    
      set editing-mode vi
      set completion-ignore-case on
      Control-j: menu-complete
      Control-k: menu-complete-backward
      set completion-map-case on
    

In general, don't use set -o vi on the cmd line or in .bashrc, use .inputrc so
that everyone who can play does play.

------
tsahyt
My favourite is actually bash. I've looked at zsh for a while and found
nothing I needed that bash didn't already provide. My bashrc just features
aliases to a couple of things I often do, and that's basically that.

Bash is actually suprisingly powerful. You might want to have a look at the
Bash Reference manual over at gnu.org.

------
Zenst
ksh, fast. Though my argument used to be that it was more common across
platforms that is not so. Still prefer it over bash and the like but that
maybe more to do with me loving to type: set -o vi. I tend not to do startup
configuration/customisations much as it's easier moving between different
computers/enviroments etc. So many times found myself doing some funky changes
and alias's and scripts and then feel a little lost on some virgin system
elesewere. I also think ksh is faster than bash though thesedays moot. That
all said I'm starting to think about writing my own shell, only way to
customise. Probably start by hacking around one of the current ones and then
play around with few others to get a nice feel to the various approach's and
what I like and don't like better into something code quatifiable.

ksh - I feel I may be amongst a small but proud crowd.

------
rileyt
zsh with oh-my-zsh. It has all the features I need, easy to install and update
and an active community. Check out the github repo <https://github.com/sorin-
ionescu/oh-my-zsh>

------
munimkazia
I've used bash all my life, but I am hooked on to fish's fish shell right now
(<http://ridiculousfish.com/shell/>). The command prediction and auto-complete
is amazing.

------
yolesaber
What is it about bash specifically that isn't satisfying your needs?

------
efazati
zsh with my config and some code form oh-my-zsh is awesome my zsh rc code —
Gist -> <https://gist.github.com/3179783>

------
debacle
bash on mingw. I've got a few aliases for things like code scanners and custom
tools. I use Komodo Edit as my editor but bash is very much my IDE.

