Thinking of Converting to EShell - Opinions?

Thinking of Converting to EShell - Opinions?

[Tennis Smith]

Hi,

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?

TIA,
-Tennis

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Re: Thinking of Converting to EShell - Opinions?

[Kevin Rodgers]

Tennis Smith wrote:
 > 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?

I don't know about eshell.  But if you're willing to use a shell under
Emacs, it would be worth the effort to switch to bash[1], ksh[2], or
zsh[3].  That way, you're using a shell whose interactive features are
at least as good as csh/tcsh, with the same syntax and capabilities as
a system scripting language[4][5] -- plus you have all of Emacs'
shell/comint features.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html
[2] http://www.kornshell.com/
[3] http://zsh.sunsite.dk/
[4] http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/
[5] http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/CshTop10.txt

-- 
Kevin Rodgers

Re: Thinking of Converting to EShell - Opinions?

[Christopher Browne]

In an attempt to throw the authorities off his trail, "Tennis Smith" <tennis_smith@yahoo-remove-to-reply.com> transmitted:
> 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?

I considered that once, but couldn't find documentation I liked on how
to use looping constructs and such, and gave up.  Unfortunately, the
Info material is nearly useless, at least what was included with the
version running with XEmacs that I have installed.

The case I'd see FOR it is if you have a great deal of existing ELisp
code you'd like to use when scripting.

Absent that, running zsh or the likes in a shell buffer would seem to
me to be more useful in providing traditional shell-oriented
capabilities.

And if I wanted to script in Lisp, I'd much rather use either CLISP or
CMUCL as the basis...
-- 
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http://cbbrowne.com/info/languages.html
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?

Re: Thinking of Converting to EShell - Opinions?

[Kai Grossjohann]

"Tennis Smith" <tennis_smith@yahoo-remove-to-reply.com> 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

Re: Thinking of Converting to EShell - Opinions?

[FCC]

Kai Grossjohann articulated on 8/18/2004 10:21 AM:
> "Tennis Smith" <tennis_smith@yahoo-remove-to-reply.com> 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?

I think, for Eshell documentation, may be the best source is at the
author's web site (the link for English version of Eshell documentation
at www.emacswiki.org is broken, but the Japanese version is still working):

http://www.newartisans.com/johnw/EshellFeatures.html

-- 
FCC.
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