Re: Proposed new POSIX sh policy, version two

[Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net>]

Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net> writes:

> On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 23:55 +0200, Jari Aalto wrote:
> > > Instead of focusing and hammering again and again on /bin/sh, why not
> > > instead ask maintainers to do #!/bin/dash?
> > 
> > Because the correct is #!/bin/sh and not to be tied on particular shell.
> 
> I can't tell what you mean.  There is nothing wrong with using
> #!/bin/dash if that's what the maintainer wants to specify.

And if the system does not have dash installed? And if the scrpts work
fine with the /bin/sh of his choice?

Hard coding is always been bad. 
 
> > Bash is not there "nayway". It is posisble to substitute it for the
> > reasons explained (memory consumption), without any significant loss of
> > interactive functionality.
> 
> And around and around we go.  Dash itself say it is not suitable for
> interactive use, and, bash is an Essential part of Debian.
> >  
> > The point was making script sh-agnostic. dash is just an
> > implementation of sh. Someone may very well use busybox or /bin/posh.
> 
> Sure, if the maintainer thinks one of those is best, they could be used
> too.

And this is only possible if scripts use

    /bin/sh

The  /bin/sh could be any valid shell that provided the standard set
of features. 

The installation system ("Essential") which sets /bin/sh to point to
/bin/bash in this respect has been a bad choice because people are not
aware of the bashinm they might be using as a result of it.

Jari