What's Happened Since February?

[jpittis]

http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2019/06/13.html

[threwawasy1228]

Seems like a very confusing name for a shell, seeing this without knowing the context I saw 'Oil', 'Shell' and assumed that it was about some oil spill or event with Shell Oil that happened in February I was unaware of. Looks like an interesting project regardless.

[chubot → threwawasy1228]

I wrote a FAQ answering this: http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2019/06/17.html#toc_0

[richardhod → threwawasy1228]

Agreed. Also mods, please can we alter the title to something more descriptive and less baity?

[Brakenshire → threwawasy1228]

I’d say the developer is making their life much more difficult by using such a confusing name, which is a pity because the project looks really interesting.

[canadaduane]

Oil is a promising attempt to make a backwards-compatible but progressively better and more sane unix shell. I look forward to trying it out!

[RobertRoberts → canadaduane]

I use unix (linux) every day, what does Oil fix that is wrong with bash/shell? (I am not a power user per se, so genuinely curious what I am missing out on)

[yorwba → RobertRoberts]

"Why Create a New Unix Shell?": http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2018/01/28.html

If you want just one example, automatic completion in bash uses a bash parser written in bash, incompatible with the bash interpreter's own parser. OSH uses the same parser for both the interpreter and the completion engine. https://github.com/oilshell/oil/issues/208#issuecomment-4496...

[iimblack → RobertRoberts]

Here's a page from the developer explaining this: http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2018/01/28.html

[hawski]

The most interesting part for me is MyPy to C++ conversion. I understand it's easier that way. It certainly makes it easier to package Oil. It's a necessary step to bootstrap all the work. Certainly such a conversion tool would be in interests of wider community, so I wonder is there any more movement in the area.

I have a small hope that it will eventually go off C++, because it may be impossible to change mind of significant part of Unix community. But it's all good, because work involved is outstanding already.

[winter_blue]

A slight tangent: I discovered the Zephyr ASDL (Abstract Syntax Description Language) by looking at the oilshell blog: https://www.oilshell.org/blog/tags.html?tag=ASDL#ASDL

There are interesting posts about the ADSL, as well as about implementing interpreters in that blog. Definitely piqued my interest as someone passionate about language design.

[simonebrunozzi]

The "Oil Project" was an open-source education initiative run by Marco De Rossi in Italy, ~10 years ago. It turned into WeSchool, a successful education business in Italy.

[ChrisRR]

Why is that website so narrow? It only takes up about 20% of the width of my monitor

[frou_dh → ChrisRR]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739

[tenpies → ChrisRR]

I actually quite like it though. Takes less eye movement to traverse along each sentences.

[OJFord → ChrisRR]

I think it's a mistake, it's due to:

    .skinny {
        width: 30em;
    }

on `body`. To me at least `.skinny` suggests there's a non-skinny style it should be picking up on non-mobile/small screens, but isn't.

edit: Ah, yes, there is also a `.wider` (not being used) at `45em`.

[russh → ChrisRR]

I like it. I can Zoom in 300% and easily read the text with my outdated prescription glasses.

[bovermyer → ChrisRR]

To answer your question directly: because it's more legible and follows sane typographical practices.

Also: why in the nine hells are you critiquing the design of the site instead of talking about the content of the article?

[michaelcampbell → ChrisRR]

About the same as the main page of this site.

[charliesharding → ChrisRR]

mobile first! :D

[wnevets → charliesharding]

I think that's actually mobile only