I. Oppenheim writes: | On Fri, 25 Jul 2003, Jack Campin wrote: | | > PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin | > export PATH | | No Jack, that's bourne shell syntax!!! | A day ago I gave the correct solution for tcsh in a | separate posting. ... | At the moment, bash is the de facto standard in the | UNIX community. You can change to it with the following | command:
I think that's really only true for linux, though of course bash is readily available for other systems. Vendors and repackagers can install whatever shell they like as the default, and a lot of them do. For OSX, and most of the *BSD clones it's csh or tcsh. For Sun, I think it's still ksh, though I haven't used a Solaris box for a while, and they could have switched to bash by now. One of the fun aspects of working on unixoid systems is the variety of command languages that you have available, each with its own flock of partisans. ;-) Of course, in the long run this is to our advantage. Had the original unix back in the 70's had a builtin command language, we would still be stuck with it, with no way to improve it (at least until linux came along). But since people could implement their own, we have several that are greatly improved over what the original designers provided. This is much of why unix users haven't generally switched over to full-time GUI use. Pretty pictures are fun and flashy, but if you actually want to accomplish something without constantly gritting your teeth about the idiocy of the user interface, you need a command language that you can type and that can remember things for you. On another list, there was a recent "UI" discussion, about the various keyboards that are available on accordions. We got into a fairly funny (if short) thread triggered by someone contemplating augmenting the accordion with a mouse. After all, keyboards are keyboards, and if a mouse is such a marvelous addition to a computer keyboard, just imagine how it could help an accordion (or piano) player. My main contribution was something I plagiarized from someone else whose name I don't recall: The modern computer GUI, with its keyboard and mouse, is very well designed - for a user with three hands. The real problem is how slow users have been to make the necessary hardware upgrades to take advantage of this clever design. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
