Re: [dev] [question] Does bash suck?

From: <rain1_AT_openmailbox.org>
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2016 00:49:17 +0100

On 2016-04-23 14:19, Teodoro Santoni wrote:
> Hi,
>
> 2016-04-23 15:03 GMT+02:00, Marc Collin <marc.collin7_AT_gmail.com>:
>> Hi.
>> Recently a user from suckless told me that bash sucks, but before I
>> could ask why he went offline.
>> I tried looking at suckless.org page about software that sucks, but
>> couldn't find anything about bash.
>> I can imagine why it sucks - no portability! #/bin/sh should be
>> enough for everyone. Is that it or is something else to the matter?
>> Maybe an entry to suckless.org suck page could be good to clarify
>> things and also warn new users.
>> Best wishes.
>
> Just read the code. Just... sloc it, then compare the sloc count with
> mksh's which has got roughly the same extra goodies bash has and
> dash/ash hasn't.

I agree. It is worth looking at line counts. Here is a table listing the
number of .c and .h lines. (an exception is scsh written in .scm, .c and
.h)

gnu bash: 138227, 13746
zsh: 135589, 5698
shivers scsh: 118475, 27131, 1985
templeos: 119115, 0
mirbsd mksh: 29223, 2562
debian dash: 16503, 2084
freebsd sh: 15453, 1622
es shell: 9017, 1436
plan9 rc: 5989, 327
execline: 3794, 117

templeos is actually an entire self hosting operating system, compiler,
graphical environment with a shell, whole bunch of 3D games - I included
it for comparison.

execline works on a different concept than regular shells:
http://skarnet.org/software/execline/grammar.html
Received on Sun Apr 24 2016 - 01:49:17 CEST

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