Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site masscomp.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!masscomp!trb From: trb@masscomp.UUCP Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: Re: Adventure in UNIX commands - ksh - (nf) Message-ID: <214@masscomp.UUCP> Date: Mon, 5-Mar-84 16:32:04 EST Article-I.D.: masscomp.214 Posted: Mon Mar 5 16:32:04 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 6-Mar-84 03:14:44 EST References: <6027@uiucdcs.UUCP> Organization: MASSCOMP, Littleton, MA Lines: 28 Jeff Bowles (uokvax!jab) says that we shouldn't be talking about the Korn shell here, cuz AT&T hasn't announced it for sale. I beg to violently disagree. The Korn shell has (arguable) major advantages over System V sh and 4.2 csh. Nicer command line editing than csh, blindingly fast script execution, job control, etc. It runs sh scripts, it has reasonable sh parsing rather than the braindamaged csh parsing prblems. And it's written in C! ;-) Ksh isn't some internal BTL secret, its guts have been discussed in several talks at USENIX. What keeps it from being released? Not Dave Korn (its author), not some fascist plot on the part of the Bell System to keep it from you. I suspect that lack of sufficient interest keeps this and other Bell System UNIX products from coming outside the Bell System. Lack of sufficient interest on the parts of the bureaucrats who release the stuff, because of a lack of sufficient interest on the part of us hackers. If we want stuff released by AT&T, we should line up outside their door. And yes, that means we should discuss it here. Yes, "we have it and you don't (nyeah nyeah)" is childish. But we should discuss it. Discussing a product whose guts has been described at USENIX isn't like discussing something that's proprietary. Gimme ksh! Andy Tannenbaum Masscomp Inc Westford MA (617) 692-6200 x274