[HN Gopher] Zshell
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       Zshell
        
       Author : swatson741
       Score  : 29 points
       Date   : 2024-03-07 06:13 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.zsh.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.zsh.org)
        
       | dmd wrote:
       | Needs a (1990) tag. It always amuses me when people, to this day,
       | say "eh, not going to use that newfangled zsh, bash was good
       | enough for my forefathers and is good enough for me" - not
       | realizing zsh was released less than a year after bash.
        
         | alyandon wrote:
         | I tried to give zsh a shot as a bash replacement but ultimately
         | returned to bash.
         | 
         | My main pain point was that zsh was really difficult to
         | configure out of the box and a lot of the completions were much
         | slower (cpu/wall time) than the equivalent completion in bash.
         | 
         | I'm sure some of that was simply ignorance on my part.
        
           | GuB-42 wrote:
           | Bash improved a lot since the early 2000s, when I first
           | assessed my options for shells and settled on zsh. As an
           | interactive shell, zsh did more, and better, than any other
           | shell I tried. Maybe it was slow, but not enough to matter at
           | the time I used it.
           | 
           | I guess that bash being the default practically everywhere
           | nowadays made it so that it got a lot of love. For example,
           | it is common to see command line tool come with bash
           | completion files, less so with zsh.
           | 
           | Also, while bash got better support where it matters, zsh
           | mostly got bloat in the form of oh-my-zsh and the likes. You
           | don't have to use it, but if you do, you tend to have all
           | kinds of fancy stuff that affects performance. Also, if you
           | want something fancy, you have fish now.
           | 
           | I still use zsh (without oh-my-zsh) out of habit, but if I
           | had to start over now, I would probably stay with bash, or
           | maybe use fish, but not zsh.
        
             | soraminazuki wrote:
             | zsh has better completion, command line editing
             | capabilities, and language features. It's not even close. I
             | can port my bash configuration to zsh in mere minutes, but
             | it's impossible to port my zsh configuration to bash. The
             | reason is simple. Bash just lacks so many features.
             | 
             | > For example, it is common to see command line tool come
             | with bash completion files, less so with zsh.
             | 
             | It's rare for bash to complete anything but filenames. zsh
             | gives me subcommands and flags with descriptions.
             | 
             | > Also, while bash got better support where it matters, zsh
             | mostly got bloat in the form of oh-my-zsh and the likes.
             | 
             | zsh is a well-maintained project. It makes no sense to
             | ignore that and instead fault them for oh-my-zsh's
             | shortcomings, as if it has anything to do with upstream
             | zsh. zsh doesn't rely on oh-my-zsh for any of its features.
        
           | ahartmetz wrote:
           | I have had someone sing the praises of zsh, tried it, was
           | like "that isn't so much better than bash" and went back.
           | Then I heard about oh-my-zsh, tried zsh with oh-my-zsh, and
           | stayed. I still think it's not a big deal, but it is an
           | improvement.
        
         | para_parolu wrote:
         | Personally, I don't have a reason to move from bash. Bash, zsh,
         | fish looks very similar to me. But they do have subtle
         | differences that require learning. And I don't see a point.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | The only reason I moved to zsh is because I'm lazy, and macOS
           | ships with it by default.
           | 
           | Easier to change my other systems to zsh than fight it, but
           | I've not really done anything different except some minor
           | notices that it seems to autocomplete a tiny bit better (but
           | that may be due to oh my zsh).
        
       | tmtvl wrote:
       | I like the path completion in zsh, being able to type ' _~
       | /.c/x/x_', hit tab and have it autocomplete to ' _~
       | /.config/xsettingsd/xsettingsd.conf_' is a lot nicer than ` _~
       | /.c_', tab, tab, add an 'o', tab again, 'x', tab, tab, 's', tab,
       | tab.
        
         | cellwebb wrote:
         | I've been using zsh for a while now and you just blew my mind!
        
           | tmtvl wrote:
           | Emacs' standard find-file function also does it, and I've
           | since gotten so used to it that it's very irritating when I
           | have to use a piece of software that doesn't complete like
           | that.
        
         | redder23 wrote:
         | I also use zsh for years and did not know that. What I like
         | this: Actually having completions shown in the screen and being
         | able to navigate them with tabs. I think that is not a default
         | behavior, but that is what oh-my-zsh does for you in its
         | default setup. Does someone have more insight on that?
         | 
         | I did not know about this, but I use
         | https://github.com/wting/autojump, so I am not super sad that I
         | missed something that hold me back severely. But good to know.
        
           | tmtvl wrote:
           | About the completions, that may be:                 autoload
           | -Uz compinit       compinit       zstyle ':completion:*' menu
           | select
        
         | mixmastamyk wrote:
         | Huh, fish does this too, thanks!
        
       | mdaniel wrote:
       | happy 10000 day <https://xkcd.com/1053/> to you, I guess, or did
       | its website change or something?
       | 
       | although TIL they use _SourceForge_ for git. I 'm sure there' s a
       | story there: https://sourceforge.net/p/zsh/code/ci/master/tree/
        
       | kuczmama wrote:
       | Somewhat related is "Oh My ZSH!" which is basically zsh on
       | steroids, it's always one of the first things I install on a new
       | computer. It gives things like new colors, themes, plugins, and
       | more. Highly recommend you check it out.
       | 
       | https://ohmyz.sh/
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-07 23:02 UTC)