Re: On the feasibility of a shell that includes execline features

From: Casper Ti. Vector <caspervector_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2017 17:09:00 +0800

Sorry for bumping this dormant thread, but I found scsh [1] really
interesting (possibly even more so than rc(1)) in this aspect: written
as a Scheme-embedded shell, it can make full use of the Scheme language,
which is both elegant and expressive (unrivaled by any other programming
language I know IMHO); using its syscall interfaces, chainloading would
be fairly easy to implement.

[1] <https://scsh.net/about/about.html>.

There are, inevitably, downsides:
* As of its latest release (v0.6.7 from 2006), scsh does not have a good
  interactive mode.
* scsh is, arguably, not very lightweight:
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 portage portage 9.0M Sep 15 2016 bash-4.4.tar.gz
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 portage portage 211K May 14 2015 rc-1.7.4.tar.gz
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 portage portage 4.2M Aug 31 2006 scsh-0.6.7.tar.gz
  However, considering the power of scsh as a language ("scsh is a Scheme
  system designed for writing useful standalone Unix programs and shell
  scripts: it spans a wide range of application, from 'script'
  applications usually handled with perl or sh, to more standard system
  applications usually written in C" [2]), I think the size of its
  codebase is justified.

[2] <https://scsh.net/docu/html/man-Z-H-2.html#node_chap_1>.

On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 11:00:43PM +0800, Casper Ti. Vector wrote:
> What do we need
> ---------------
>
> Unfortunately, I am not a system programmer, and do not my current time
> schedule allow me to spend enough time to systematically learn it; but I
> think that a language that combines the advantages of shell and execline
> is not only a concept, but also a feasible and rewarding goal, which is
> worth a Unix programmer's efforts. Thus I really wish somebody that is
> interested in process supervision and has the resource to try to realise
> this concept, probably by incorporating execline utilities into rc(1).

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Received on Wed Apr 12 2017 - 09:09:00 UTC

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