Re: Several reason a minimal POSIX /bin/bash is a bad idea
On 30 Jul 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> Hi,
>
> [I am going to be in hot water for this one]
Not with me ;-)
>
> I am disturbed by the several suggestions about making /bin/sh
> a small, minimalist shell that offers just bare bones POSIX
> environments and eschews some common shell practices for Linux (where
> full featuresd shells have served as /bin/sh for the most part).
>
I have been having the same feelings, and since you expressed them so well
I have little to say in addition.
My one point is: As a user I depend on bash-history (the up arrow) and
several other features of Bash, and would be more than a bit disapointed
if the "default" shell was set to Ash.
Bash supposedly becomes "more posix" when run as /bin/sh. If it displays
"bashisms" that are undesirable, then bug reports should be filed and it
should be fixed.
I am in complete agreement with what you say below. Thanks!
> While elegant and great for the pedants amongst us, we should
> realize that we are putting together a distribution, and there are
> third party software developers we have to work with. POSIX
> compliance is critical. But there is no reason why the command
> interpreter can't be a super set.
>
> So while POSIX compliance is a disired goal, the shell should
> not be unfriendly to non POSIX scripts, just like browsers parse
> legal HTML, but they do their levbel best to accomodate bad HTML.
>
> Be liberal in what you accept, be very strict in what you
> output. Our scripts that say /bin/sh should not have bashisms. Our
> default /bin/sh should accept them.
>
> People who wish to test scripts should change their /bin/sh;
> and we should tell people that using some other shell as /bin/sh may
> increase performance.
>
> But we should not detrimentally affect the stability of the
> system just because it makes us feel good that our shell is a
> minimalist POSIX shell. I do not think the default should be changed
> unless there are reasons far stronger than those which have been
> presented.
>
> People, including third party software developers, may have
> come to depend on /bin/sh being Bash. Also, since bash is essential,
> we should not force yet another command interpreter on /; and bash
> _does_ try to be more posixly correct when invoked as sh.
>
> People should be allowed to change /bin/sh. But the default
> should not be changed.
>
> manoj
> --
> "I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of
> Christianity when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was
> there ever such blasphemous nonsense!" Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple"
> Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
> Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
>
>
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>
>
Dwarf
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