Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site ucbvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!ucbcad!ucbvax!fair
From: fair@ucbvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Callan Unistar 200
Message-ID: <378@ucbvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jun-83 00:04:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.378
Posted: Tue Jun 28 00:04:43 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Jun-83 12:56:15 EDT
References: <3719@root44.UUCP>
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Computer Science
Lines: 32

For Dave Lukes, somewhere in the U.K.:

=~ (flame ON)
	The infamous Bourne shell (/bin/sh) is a horror to do anything with.
It's sole purpose, in so far as I am concerned is to invoke other programs in
a non-interactive way. (ex. popen(3) or system(3)). It is small and fast, and
therefore nearly acceptable for this purpose. It is unacceptable for 
interactive use, because it is missing a history mechanism, because its
if, while, (and other such "flow control" statements) have very cryptic syntax,
and because the redirection mechanism for stderr is insane. It is unacceptable
for scripts for most of the same reasons.

Whew!
~= (flame OFF)

	Now in a more subdued tone, I should say that which shell you use is
largely a matter of taste & religion (like editors), and I have found that
I like csh better than sh, and the majority of the programmers who use Unix
that I know prefer csh to sh. Csh can do some things which I consider a 
necessity in a command interpreter. Among other things, I am thankful that
I have a choice! Many of the existing OS's in the world today don't offer
one a choice, so the users are stuck with one person's (or programming team's)
idea of what a command interpreter should be.

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@Berkeley
			ucbvax!dual!fair
			Dual Systems Corporation

P.S.	Of course the fact that I learned Unix at Berkeley has something to
	do with which shell I use. On the other hand, I like to think of
	myself as being flexible. After all, I prefer using vi to TOPS-20
	EMACS, and I learned EMACS first.