[Nix-dev] Let's switch the default shell in Nixpks / NixOS to csh

[Dario Bertini]

I'm just a random guy here, but:

1-I use fish for my user shell, and I never had any problem... Obviously nix-shell still defaults to bash, but I'm not bothered too much about it (I tend to use it only to debug when some build doesn't work) 
2-I found a bug in a shell wrapper that wouldn't have happened with a sane language... I don't know about the usage of shell scripts somewhere else in the system, but I'd really like that for wrappers something else was used by default. Maybe Python or Guile... But even something like Ruby or Perl would be saner than shell scripts

On 1 April 2015 22:26:35 BST, Peter Simons <simons at cryp.to> wrote:
>Hi guys,
>
>the default builder in Nixpkgs (and pretty much all other shell code in
>all our
>packages) assumes that it's interpreted by "bash". Now, we've had a lot
>of
>trouble with "bash" recently:
>
> - crazy security vulnerabilities;
>
>- auto completion is slow, gives unexpected results, or doesn't work at
>all;
>
> - /bin/sh is not "bash" on many non-NixOS host systems; and
>
> - many of other problems.
>
>This makes me wonder whether maybe we should switch all shell scripting
>in
>Nixpkgs to "csh"? Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems? I've heard
>experts say
>that "csh" is generally considered superior for scripting tasks because
>of its
>more intuitive syntax.
>
>Now, the only minor obstacle is to transition the existing package base
>from
>"bash" to "csh". That wouldn't be difficult to accomplish, though.
>There's
>probably a bash2csh converter available somewhere that we could use.
>
>Of course, for consistency's sake we'd have to make "csh" the only
>supported
>user shell for accounts on NixOS machines too. We don't want our users
>messing
>with other shells. All that diversity will just make our lives harder
>as
>developers. These people will drive us crazy with bug reports on
>Github,
>complaining about how they freaky "bash" environment no longer works
>with
>"nix-shell" etc., and that's just going to be a maintenance nightmare.
>It's
>probably better to decide once and for all that Nix supports only "csh"
>and
>move on to other, more important things.
>
>Anyway, let me know that you think. Shall I prepare a pull request?
>
>Best regards,
>Peter
>
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-- 
Sent from mobile. Please excuse my brevity.
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