[colug-432] ksh (Re: Why Bourne Shell Compatible: Portability)

[Rob Funk]

On Wednesday, August 10, 2011 07:05:49 PM Jeff Frontz wrote:
> bash is horrifyingly incompatible with ksh.  It's why I loath bash --
> I continually try to use my "muscle memory" ksh-isms without looking
> what I'm doing and end up with lots and lots of bash gibberish.  It's
> horrifying, horrifying I say!

Ah, thanks for setting me straight. I've probably been told before, but I 
always forget. Maybe I'll finally remember this time. My only ksh experience 
is in fixing a few shell scripts and interacting with pdksh on OpenBSD; I grew 
up on tcsh and switched to bash once it finally got enough of my favorite tcsh 
features.

> pdksh is only slightly better; it's only good when you can't run an
> actual ksh for some reason-- and there's really not a very good reason
> as you can download it (and the source) for free.

Being able to download the source for free isn't sufficient for everybody; the 
license terms are important too.... Since ksh's current license terms have 
been approved by FSF, OSI, and Debian, I don't see why it couldn't be included 
in Linux. (And a further search indicates that it is in Debian and Ubuntu.) 
But I'm sure it's too restrictive for the BSD people, who tend to hate any 
sort of copyleft license.

> Visit http://www.kornshell.com/  for all your Korn shell needs.

Or sudo apt-get install ksh, if you're into that sort of thing.