Why "alias" is my last resort for aliases
evanhahn.com
I prefer scripts to real aliases when defining a custom command.

I’ve done something similiar to this over the years for organization purposes and not having to change much between shells except add a path. You can also add cases that check your shell and do something slightly different if needed.

  • Fisch@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    51·
    1 day ago

    I use ZSH with plugins but back when I switched away from bash, I also looked at fish. I didn’t use it back then because people say it doesn’t follow the POSIX standard but is that really an issue? It probably only extends it instead of taking things away, right?

    • 柊 つかさ@lemmy.world
      101·
      1 day ago

      Unless you have a particular reason for sticking to POSIX, who cares? I’ll take the user experience improvement without worry.

      • Ferk@lemmy.ml
        4·
        12 hours ago

        The thing is that, if you are not sticking to POSIX, you might as well use more widely available alternative scripting languages like perl or python, which are often included in most workspaces by default, so I’d say it’s more useful to get experienced in those than to get experienced in fish.

    • deadcream@sopuli.xyz
      81·
      1 day ago

      All POSIX compatible shells have their quirks and differences because the common POSIX part is rather small, so you will need to learn them anyway when switching from one to another. Fish is not that different from them (to much less extent than something like nushell) and it benefits from having less ancient baggage.

    • exu@feditown.comEnglish
      81·
      1 day ago

      I still write most scripts for bash, but for interactive use fish is just so much better out of the box.

      • nycki@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        this is my sticking point with fish. I still need to know bash for writing portable scripts, so its hard to justify scripting in fish.

        • logging_strict@lemmy.ml
          11·
          11 hours ago

          that’s actually a really good argument for not using either.

          Taking a step back discussing shells seems like a never ending hell loop.

          Sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game.

          Use python and stop being stuck in the distant past.

    • jokro@feddit.org
      1·
      1 day ago

      No issues except that if you want to source files to set env vars you might have to use a plugin (foreignenv in my case)

      I still write scripts in bash. But fish’s command completion is incredible. Idk, maybe other shells can be that good as well, but fish does out of the box.

      Edit: Also some people used to bash wondered what that nice shell is on a server we administrate together. They had no problems using it coming from bash.

      And sticking with POSIX is good if you want to stay portable, but my shell mustn’t be portable. It should be friendly and reduce mental load.