Re: bash me, if you like

[Richard Coleman <richardcoleman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ada@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> In article <3FD711AD.20400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Richard Coleman wrote:
>
> > In the beginning, zsh was actually based on ksh with features added to 
> > make csh users more comfortable.  These days, it's a kitchen sink of 
> > features and can emulate most of the other common shells.  Although it's 
> > been awhile, I was one of the primary maintainers for zsh for several years.
>
>
> the kitchen sink of features is actually worthwhile, especially the 
> programming features.  it means that startup scripts, etc can do things
> either without calling external processes, or without making nasty messes.
>
> (decent arrays and associative arrays are the main feature I'm talking about.)

Yeah, although the syntax can be ugly at times, alot of basic scripting 
can be done just as easily in zsh as perl/python/whatever.  Especially, 
if you are doing Expect style scripting of interactive sessions.

The crowd of folks using the more esoteric features of zsh is pretty 
small.  But they do exist.  The main problem is just that it takes 
awhile to learn all these features.

Richard Coleman
richardcoleman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx