From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim X Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Reasons for Switching to Eshell Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:41:52 +1000 Organization: Rapt Technologies Message-ID: <873aq8odz3.fsf@lion.rapttech.com.au> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1206866435 21002 80.91.229.12 (30 Mar 2008 08:40:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:40:35 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 30 10:41:06 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Jft69-0004to-JD for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:41:05 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Jft5X-0007JT-UJ for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:40:27 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!sn-xt-sjc-03!sn-xt-sjc-01!sn-post-sjc-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:E5moLKkCsZdcLnwwftkg6Eewex8= Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Original-Lines: 33 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:157448 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: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:52818 Archived-At: Lorenzo Isella writes: > Dear All, > I am slowly discovering new features in emacs and I found out it has its > own shell (eshell). > Now, I wonder if it is a good investment to learn how to use it. I found > tons of tutorials online (BTW: any recommendation to start me out?), but I > am missing the big picture. > I suppose that eshell must be perfectly integrated with emacs, but other > than that are there reasons to give it preference with respect to .e.g > BASH? > Many thanks I think it depends on how you like to work. As you point out, it has the advantage of being more integrated with emacs and unlike other shells, all your standard emacs commands and keybindings still work well. You don't need to use other keybindings to avoid keystrokes being interpreted by the shell e.g. Control-c etc. The other way it is quite useful is that you can use elisp to interact with your shell. For people coming from a lisp/scheme background, this may be more natural than normal bash style interaction. eshell is not a good replacement for shell scripts, so if your someone who writes lots of shell scripts, eshell isn't going to be a replacement for bash. Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au