4d ago

The BEST Shell You’re Not Using - Fish - YouTube

Didn't know about auto populating search queries, abbreviations, string scripting, and using private mode.

26 comments

I had to switch from fish to bash because one command to install S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - G.A.M.M.A only works in bash. I have no further details on why 🤷
Jokes in you, I am already using it
need a blahaj shell desperately
But I am using Fish. It's like you don't even know me!
It's perfect for daily interactive use, but terrible for scripting. I write almost all my scripts in bash, the only exceptions being convenience scripts for fish itself.
- Same, but I don't think it was ever intended differently; I mean the word interactive is literally in the name. If you want portable scripts, use bash. For simple helpers, quickly define a function. If you feel your script becomes too long, use Python.
  
  Agree, although I've recently replaced the python usecase with Go. Almost as easy to write, but much faster and safer.
- I still work with bash scripts from fish (to interoperate with bash users), but it's more like how I use python: the interpreter is specified either in the shebang or explicitly on the cli command invoking the script. It works quite well actually
But I am using fish.
I wish that string command and also their math command were just general-purpose utilities pre-installed on all systems.
Tried to script something with sed the other day and was so confused why my regexes weren't matching, until we realized you need to pass --regexp-extended to get modern-day regex.
And then I later tried to calculate an average, which bc decided to round down, because it was presumably doing integer math. I actually ended up running python -c "print($total / $count)", because I could not be arsed to work out, if there was some flag to make bc work properly.
I'm fine with these tools continuing to exist for legacy purposes, but I would like a modern replacement just about now.
- string split/collect and similar can't work unless its a builtin. The set foo ( ...... | string ... ) pattern couldn't work if string was an external binary.
Scrubbing through the video, this hurts my soul
bash

echo $(echo $STRING | sed 's/World/Bash/')
For variables bash has PE forms:
bash

echo ${STRING/World/Bash}
I miss these too much when I try Fish.
- What's so bad about string replace World Bash $STRING?
  
  Nothings bad about it. I don't think it's strictly better or worse. Just
  I'm used to it
  The comparison in the video was just disingenuous.
I use Nushell, yes, I know I'm insane.
- I wouldn't use Nushell as my main shell, but I love using it for data manipulation. It's incredible for that <3
  afaik it's way more versatile than using jq.
- I get annoyed by differences with (Ba|Z)sh when I try Fish, but nushell is so much its own thing that it's fun.
- @HappyFrog @ruffsl you're not insane. I think you're a person that knows what they like and knows what works for them which is the beauty of Linux.
  Also I've never heard of nushell and now you've made me want to check it out!
  
  Thank you :3 I just like structured data. It's tedious, and it won't work with most apps, but it's beautiful.
- I'm glad you mentioned nushell (it sounds like) is a more poweruser thing. Someone recommended it in place of fish in another thread and I was curious to check it out, but it sounds like not at all what I want or need as a fish user and that saves me the trouble of trying to make heads or tails of a terminal tool I don't understand
  But it looks like a cool project and I'm glad it exists for people like you! 😊
  
  I’m glad you mentioned nushell (it sounds like) is a more poweruser thing.
  It serves a different niche. nushell is very good for working with structured data. fish on the other hand is a "conventional" shell that's not POSIX compliant. I guess that's why they call it "a command line shell for the 90s" because it doesn't incorporate modern concepts, it's just more convenient than POSIX shells.
  This results in some notable differences: nushell for example has actual data types (https://www.nushell.sh/book/types_of_data.html, though they are dynamically typed by default).
  All this doesn't mean that one is better than the other. I use fish daily and just sometimes dabble in nushell because most of my workflow doesn't require all the stuff nu offers.

26 comments