Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!uflorida!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Should ``csh'' be part of the System V distribution?
Message-ID: <7895@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 15 May 88 19:13:16 GMT
References: <2599@usceast.UUCP> <2601@usceast.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 32

In article <2601@usceast.UUCP> still@cs.scarolina.edu (Bert Still) writes:
>RESOLVED that csh should be included as a part of System V in the same sense
>	that the ``vi'' editor, and TCP/IP have been included.

TCP/IP is available as an extra-cost "add-on", last I heard.
That might be appropriate for csh also, assuming that AT&T
wants to undertake its maintenance (I don't know why they
would).

csh's main problem is that it essentially duplicates Bourne
shell functionality in an incompatible way.  If there are
two "supported" command language interpreters for shell
scripts, then one has to flag every script with some
indication of the interpreter to be applied (e.g. the god-
awful #! kludge).  I note that most csh ports to System V
implementations that I've seen have gotten this wrong...

"C-like" is a joke.  Csh hardly resembles C, and to the
extent that it does, that is not a particular advantage for
a command language interpreter.

>... unless I am badly mistaken the number of UN*X installations at
>universities outnumbers the number of commercial installations ...

You're badly mistaken, even ruling out the vast majority of
counterexamples as you did.

Also, nothing is proved by your informal sampling.  There
are lots of reasons why people at your site might be using
csh instead of ksh, BRL Bourne sh, etc.  At our site several
people have switched from csh to the BRL sh, on both 4.3BSD-
and System V-based systems.