Should ``csh'' be part of the System V distribution?

[John Woods]

In article <77 at denali.stanford.edu>, karish at denali.stanford.edu (karish) writes:
> In article <2601 at usceast.UUCP> still at cs.scarolina.edu (Bert Still) writes:
> >Incidentally, as far as I know, no one
> >uses the Korn shell.

The UNOS operating system is now shipped with ksh as the standard command
interpreter (since ksh can be used without a UNIX(R) license).

> The only thing I miss is the '!$' construct;

Perhaps there are subtleties in the csh !$ construct that I am missing, but
in ksh, $_ is the last word of the previous command line.  In emacs mode,
ESC . (period) expands immediately into the last word.

> Unfortunately, AT&T isn't marketing ksh in a way that encourages its
> adoption as a standard.  I'd like to see it bundled with System V,
> instead of being an extra-cost option from the Toolchest.  The price
> of  a re-distribution license is reportedly about $20,000, which is too
> high, until there's a demand for the program.  The demand won't be
> there until people can try the program, and we go around and around.

For an operating system vendor, $20,000 for the right to distribute an
infinite number of copies of an incredibly useful program ought to be quite
attractive (though I guess traditional UNIX vendors might figure "it's not
THAT much better than plain old sh", or worse, "How could anything be better
than csh?" ULCH!).  And for mid-sized user communities, the $2,000 source-
and-site-license doesn't seem that bad, either.

> Some of Korn's claims for the program are a bit exaggerated.  It's
> still a good piece of work, and a worthy replacement for csh.

Amen!
-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, john at frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw at eddie.mit.edu

"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
		-- Johnny Hart