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by chrisBob 4151 days ago
After learning Perl I started using it where some more educated people might recommend a proper shell script. My thinking is that using what you know is a whole lot more efficient than learning a new tool for a small job, even if some people think it is the right tool. I am sure it is no different for people familiar with Haskell.
2 comments
loudmax 4151 days ago
I do a lot of shell scripting, and I'm not sure there is such a thing as a "proper" shell script. The shell just isn't a great programming language. Just about any modern scripting language is better, starting with Perl. But the shell has been the lingua franca of the Unix world for decades now. It's the one language that you can pretty much guarantee is on any Unix or Linux server, even pretty ancient ones.

I don't doubt that Haskell isn't a better scripting language language than the shell, but you can't assume /usr/bin/env runhaskell is going to return anything on random Linux servers. Perl and Python, maybe, but Haskell isn't there yet.

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klibertp 4151 days ago
> you can pretty much guarantee is on any Unix or Linux server, even pretty ancient ones

Well, yes and no. You can get reasonable compatibility with different Unix flavours if you stick to sh. Your script is not going to work on BSDs once you start using bash specific features, though.

Fun fact: on FreeBSD bash does not live in /bin/bash, it's in /usr/local/bin/bash. Every time you write a shebang with /bin/bash hardcoded you're making your script harder to use there.

Perl is everywhere almost by default and it's more compatible as it has just one implementation, without sh/bash/csh/ksh/tcsh/zsh madness. I'd say it's a good idea to use Perl instead of shell script for anything more complicated than a few lines of code if it's meant to be portable. (And I'm not Perl programmer at all).

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loudmax 4151 days ago
Oh that's interesting. I'd assumed that FreeBSD had made bash the default shell around the same time that Mac OS did. I guess my point still stands for /bin/sh. Not a fun programming language though.
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floatboth 4151 days ago
No way. One of FreeBSD's goals is to get rid of everything that's GPL-licensed. bash is not only that, but it's also horrible code.

And it's a user-friendly shell with all the tab completions and history searches, which DOES NOT BELONG IN /bin/sh!

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klibertp 4150 days ago
Exactly, which is the reason why BSDs were not affected by shellshock. And moreover, modern tcsh is quite a powerful and full-featured shell, too.

I unfortunately had to switch to Linux a few years ago (after using FreeBSD for almost a decade) and I still miss how consistent and well laid out BSDs seem in comparison.

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Gabriel439 4151 days ago
Note that you only need `/usr/bin/env runhaskell` if you want to interpret the script. You can also compile the script as a native binary, which is the recommended approach on Windows.
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falcolas 4151 days ago
Agreed. I look upon people who use PHP for shell scripting with a sigh and a shaken head, but I can't fault them for it. PHP works, PHP is quick to write, and for many tasks, PHP is sufficient.

I hope Haskel can gain traction in this area, if only because options are always nice to have, and competition forces everyone to bring their best game.

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