Re:Show HN: Murex – non-Posix shell designed for productivity
by hnlmorg on Thursday January 23, 2020 @03:34PM
(#22131662)
I'm with you on that one. The original murex syntax was very Javascript inspired. In fact it was even object oriented and originally called "jsh". The ironic thing is I hate JS as a language - though that's less about the syntax and more about other specific grips.
Anyhow, first I made quoting strings optional, because mandatory quotes were fucking annoying for regular use. Then the parentheses disappeared. Then the object orientated model was dropped.
Murex is a very different language now to what it was when it started; though there are still some legacy features in there which are throwbacks to early designed (eg the default data-type is called "generic", which made sense when it was OO as generic was meant to handle any content but makes less sense now that it's a first party type in its own right).
There's definitely a lot wrong with murex though. It's a long way off being a proper language. But for shell work, it has been my default daily shell for a few years now. I also use it for writing any shell scripts albeit just stuff for personal use.
From what you've posted, I'd be very interested if you ever designed a shell language. It sounds like you and I have similar desires for what the next iteration of UNIX shells should look like.
Anyhow, first I made quoting strings optional, because mandatory quotes were fucking annoying for regular use. Then the parentheses disappeared. Then the object orientated model was dropped.
Murex is a very different language now to what it was when it started; though there are still some legacy features in there which are throwbacks to early designed (eg the default data-type is called "generic", which made sense when it was OO as generic was meant to handle any content but makes less sense now that it's a first party type in its own right).
There's definitely a lot wrong with murex though. It's a long way off being a proper language. But for shell work, it has been my default daily shell for a few years now. I also use it for writing any shell scripts albeit just stuff for personal use.
From what you've posted, I'd be very interested if you ever designed a shell language. It sounds like you and I have similar desires for what the next iteration of UNIX shells should look like.