[playingalong]

Wow. It's scary to think what if he didn't

[aliqot]

We'd be using Ash or Korn

[yjftsjthsd-h]

When I've tried it, ksh has seemed decent. I don't know, however, whether that would have been true regardless or if it benefited from competition.

[chasil]

The POSIX shell actually devolved from Korn and bash.

ksh88 worked very hard to compile its data segment in under 64k so it would work on Xenix running on a 286 and similarly constrained systems. The code was sphagetti gymnastics in achieving this.

The POSIX shell standard removed many features of the ksh88 language. It appears that this was done in an attempt to maintain a small footprint, but clarify the code.

This is good for embedded systems, but bad if you need arrays.

[aliqot]

As cliche as it sounds, you just kinda had to be there.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

In the sense that bash was better than ksh in a way that's difficult to articulate?

[aliqot]

More in the sense that at-the-time 'modern'[0] Linux eschewed a new set of tools that displaced/subverted those we used on other systems at the time. They can't be compared subjectively because it ignores a lot of the chronological nuance of the situation. It's not that one shell, or one OS was better than the other though there are objective measurements to prove one vs the other, it's the culmination of the social factors surrounding those societal shifts that resulted in what we now see as the 'better' tool coming out on top. We also cannot disregard the ancillary effects of being the favored shell on what is now the favored platform- more eyes more users more mindshare all helped to accelerate it to where it is now.

I hope that hits the notes you were listenin for.

[0] When I say 'modern' I'm not referring to the Ubuntus and GUI-first distros that we know today.