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Why zsh rocks

I think the following makes this a post about why $SHELL is better than $OTHERSHELL

zsh: sure you want to delete all the files in /home/smspillaz/Source/compiz/dev/plugins/mblur/build [yn]?

I can’t think of the number of times that has saved me from doing something stupid at 3AM.

Also, there’s the prompt
Screenshot-TerminalWith the built-in autocompletion.

The bar down the bottom is the awesomeness that is screen coupled with byobu.

So there is the case. My zshrc can be found here. Credit to who-t for the git-branch display code, the shell is the well-known ‘petes-shell’ the synergy related stuff is from synergy+ and the kde functions are from the kde project to simplify building kde.

And on the compiz front:
* Ported showmouse, firepaint, ezoom and mblur (although showmouse is broken :<). I am currently working on DBUS but it’s quite a load because the plugin is so huge and depended on quite a lot of the old interfaces in 0.8

– Sm

[BTW, if you saw my rant on reddit about BoycottNovell – I was perfectly serious about it. BN, don’t link to this post or else you will see mono bindings to compiz].

8 thoughts on “Why zsh rocks”

  1. Thanks for the Byobu hint… will look into that.

    By default all the rm commands in Mandriva are “rm -i” e.g. interactive confirmation to protect the thick. That said I’m now used to typing -f switch now :s

    We’ve also got a git-prompt package in Mandrvia that shows the git branch in your normal bach prompt. I couldn’t live without it now!

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    1. see, that shows why an alias like ‘rm -i’ is a bad idea. what good is the alias if you end up using the -f switch all the time? it totally negates the advantage of having a -i switch. also using -f overrides any warnings you might get when removing files that were readonly. extra checks are only useful if they come on unusual situations, but when you use rm, you should expect something to be removed, so there is nothing unusual about it. however, trying to remove a readonly file is something unusual, but because of your habit to type ‘rm -f’ all the time, you will never get a warning about that.

      -i is much more useful on cp and mv, because here it only causes a prompt when the target already exists, and, with cp and mv having an existing target is something unusual, so in most cases the command will run without a prompt, and i can use -i every time because i know it will only disturb me if something unusual happens.

      i don’t have an alias for cp or mv but i developed a habit to type -i on the commandline every time.

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  2. I’ve got rm aliased to “rm -I” to prevent similar screwups. I’ve played with byobu, but I can’t say I’m a fan. I like my terminals clean and simple 🙂

    I didn’t see your rant about BN, but Roy Schestowitz is a serial troll so I wouldn’t pay much attention to him.

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  5. Mono bindings to Compiz? Count me in. I’d like to see a plugin written in C#. Muhahaha!!

    Though, to be honest, it’s a great language… one of few things Microsoft didn’t bomb.

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