From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kai Grossjohann Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Thinking of Converting to EShell - Opinions? Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:21:08 +0200 Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <868yccx3ez.fsf@ketchup.de.uu.net> References: <1092764940.460278@sj-nntpcache-5> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1092817865 2185 80.91.224.253 (18 Aug 2004 08:31:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 08:31:05 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Aug 18 10:30:58 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BxLqT-0007Af-00 for ; Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:30:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1BxLug-0004mp-0C for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 18 Aug 2004 04:35:18 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!uio.no!quimby.gnus.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: comp.emacs,gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 33 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 139.4.37.213 Original-X-Trace: quimby.gnus.org 1092817278 20811 139.4.37.213 (18 Aug 2004 08:21:18 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@quimby.gnus.org Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 08:21:18 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.110003 (No Gnus v0.3) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Fyl8YhkdSvgjSWe0O2y3fZfLs+w= Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu comp.emacs:85858 gnu.emacs.help:124818 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:20165 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:20165 "Tennis Smith" writes: > I've used tcsh for years. But it looks like the eshell is finally mature > enough to be a good alternative. Is it? Can you use it on a daily basis > without having to switch back? Is the conversion worth the effort? AFAICT, eshell has always been "mature" in the sense that the software was working well. There is, however, a documentation problem. The Emacs Wiki (www.emacswiki.org) has a great section on Eshell. Perhaps that is good enough for you? >>From the functionality perspective, what I really really like a lot about eshell is that you can invoke Emacs functions so easily. For instance, "man foo" from eshell does like M-x man RET foo RET. And "make all" does like M-x compile RET C-a C-k make all RET. You can also just enter a Lisp expression as a command. >>From the same perspective, what is missing is input redirection (you can't say "foo < bar", you have to say "cat bar | foo"), and for output redirection, stdout and stderr are not separated. That is, "foo > bar" will put both stderr and stdout into bar. This, however, is not the "fault" of eshell, it's a general Emacs limitation. The fact that it is so easy to invoke Emacs functions from eshell caused me to write an add-on for regular shell mode to enable invoking Emacs functions from it. It is not working very well, though. Not sure if I ever get the chance to polish it. Oh, and one minor issue that you might encounter when you start with eshell is the unusual completion style. It is called "cycling completion". You can turn it off. Kai