[16897] in Athena Bugs
Re: early-release, bindkey
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aaron M. Ucko)
Wed Jun 16 10:11:17 1999
To: Alicia Allen <iggy@MIT.EDU>
Cc: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>, bugs@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: [16896]
From: amu@MIT.EDU (Aaron M. Ucko)
Date: 16 Jun 1999 10:11:11 -0400
Message-Id: <udln1y0kzgg.fsf@tux.mit.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
<iggy@MIT.EDU> (Alicia Allen) writes:
> Eudora doesn't seem to handle "In-Reply-To:" lines, sorry...
>
> >Didn't your [authority figure] tell you not to use csh scripts? ;-)
> >
> nope.
> out of curiosity, and the desire to have abetter clue about athena&UNIX,
> why not?
There's a file called csh.whynot that explains why csh is a poor
scripting language. You can find a copy in my home directory.
> Why should one? I mean, I can see perfectly well that:
> man csh
> ....
> -f Fast start. Read neither the .cshrc file, nor the
> .login file (if a login shell) upon startup.
>
> but why would you want to or not want to read that file? As I think of it,
> I can't see why it has you read that, if you assume that the .cshrc is
> already read on startup, in the first place.
That default is in fact a poor choice, but enough things rely on it
that it can't change.
You generally don't want a script to source your .cshrc automatically,
particularly if you want multiple people to be able to run the script
and see more or less deterministic behavior The only reason I can
think of that anyone might reasonably want to is if they're writing a
script for personal use only and want to get some of their aliases
(which aren't inherited).
> Is csh not the default? I'm not clear that I purposely change my shell,
> then again, I've had so much advice and so many customizations over the
> years, that you never know...
tcsh is a version of csh with some enhancements (such as extra
bultins, command-line editing support, and fixes for some of its many
bugs), and has been the default Athena shell for some years now. When
/bin/athena/tcsh was established as stable, it became the default
shell for former csh users; it's possible you didn't notice that
change.
--
Aaron M. Ucko, KB1CJC <amu@mit.edu> (finger amu@monk.mit.edu)
