Rubish: A Unix shell written in pure Ruby(github.com)
46 pointsby winebarrel4 hours ago8 comments
  • saysjonathan12 minutes ago
    Tangential:

    I would love to see more interpreted languages offer shells with native constructs for operating as daily drivers shells (not just REPLs). When I first started learning Ruby I used `rush`[0] as my main shell. Being immersed in the language, even if there were a few helpers for shell operations, really helped me reason better about Ruby and think in the language. `scsh`[1] was enlightening as well. Ultimately the ergonomics of both pushed me back to more conventional variant but they were really helpful learning mechanisms.

    0: https://github.com/adamwiggins/rush 1: https://github.com/scheme/scsh

  • faangguyindiaan hour ago
    People think Ruby is a slow language, but little do they know Ruby is a slower language than Go. But ruby these days is faster than Python.
    • shevy-java19 minutes ago
      The speed argument never convinced me in general, in that whether it is perl, ruby or python, they are all slower than C. So the comparisons really are odd to me.

      The "scripting" languages should of course not try to be slow, but people rarely use them for speed-reasons; they use these languages for gains in productivity and ease of writing code, adding features and so forth. That should be the primary focus point.

      In the future we may no longer have such a speed penalty anyway.

    • dahrkaelan hour ago
      when ruby was trendy the 1.9 branch was still cooking so in a lot of people's mind it is veery slow
  • keylean hour ago
    Oh my god this is the best name to the application. You win the weekend.
    • felixding5 minutes ago
      Exactly. Very clever name!
  • kieckerjan18 minutes ago
    Usually when I see a project flaunting its language like this it elicits a sigh. (You probably know what I am talking about.) This is a happy exception since this project actually promotes a deep integration with its language of choice, so the title and name are fully warranted. Kudos for that.
  • swader99937 minutes ago
    Good April 1 article.
    • shevy-java17 minutes ago
      But why would it be a first april article? Are there any arguments to be made for this statement? Because the shell works, I just tested it. It may not be everyone's cup of tea but that's always the case for any given software. The primary reason I use bash over, say, zsh, despite thinking zsh is more advanced, is that I use bash mostly because it is very simple. I like simplicity. (Bash could be even simpler, I would not mind. I don't use shell scripts for instance, ruby or python are much more convenient than shell scripts.)
  • ifh-hnan hour ago
    I much prefer the pipe to method chaining.
    • psychoslavean hour ago
      Could this be elaborated?
      • ilvez28 minutes ago
        ls | grep file.txt vs ls().grep("file.txt")
        • shevy-java10 minutes ago
          Your comparison is not quite optimised as you use () which is not necessary. But I understand the comparison you make.

          But, you can write an optimised pipe in ruby too. I actually did that, because I could not want to be bothered to be restricted via ruby's syntax for pipe-like operations.

          Even aside from that, the original claim was about pipes versus method chaining. To me these are not orthogonal to one another; they are very similar. Just with the pipe focusing on tying together different programs and focusing on input-output functionality. Method chaining in ruby is a bit more flexible, we have blocks, and usually the methods chained occur in one class/object or the toplevel namespace (less frequently though, usually). Even the pipe comparison is not ideal, because traditional UNIX pipes don't support e. g. data manipulation via an object-oriented focus. And I want that (see avisynth, but extend the idea there via a) nicer syntax and b) data manipulation for EVERYTHING).

          I don't see pipe as being exclusive over method chaining or reverse.

          One interesting idea was to add |> elixir's pipe-like operator to ruby. I like that, but indeed, the net-gain in ruby is quite minimal since method-chaining + blocks already offer a ton of flexibility, so I am not sure how |> would fit into ruby 1:1. Still I like the idea, but anyone proposing |> needs to come up with really convincing ideas to matz here. Because people WILL ask what the real difference is to method chaining. Even fail-safe method chaining in ruby though I absolutely hate the syntax via ? there ... it reads like garbage to me. Example:

          https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/trunk/test/ruby/test_threa...

              t1&.kill&.join
          (It has moved since then, so the above link no longer works, been some years since I first saw it. Upon seeing it my brain instantly cancelled any use of "&.", even though I understand the rationale. It is just ugly to no ends. I still like the |> syntax in Elixir though, even though I can not really see what this should do in ruby.)
          • ilvez4 minutes ago
            Note that I just elaborated what I thought was being asked. Parantheses - see what switching professionally to Ruby wonderland to Python does to a person! Just in about half a year needed..
  • minraws2 hours ago
    Is it just me of did others also read rubbish instead of rubi-sh...I think that might be the joke. hm...
    • pelasacoan hour ago
      The repository owner is a true ruby hero. I am not sure if the name is a joke, and he was just fooling around, but the code is real.
  • shevy-java22 minutes ago
    Hmm. The name is a bit awkward since people can call it "rubbish". The idea is also not quite new in that many years ago people worked on an ruby-like shell with OOP support from the get go and they used a ncurses drop down box too. I forgot the name, but it must have been before 2010 already, as I vaguely remember it from talking on IRC back in those days. I think the main developer was from South Africa, but I don't remember that much anymore.

    A few years ago irb got a facelift, so rubish probably represents a more modern take on the shell concept. I tested it and it works too. I wonder how much the everything-is-an-object idea is extended here. Many years ago I learned avisynth + virtualdub and I always liked how they approached filtering. Ffmpeg is great, but I absolutely hate the filter system it uses and the ABSOLUTELY horrible syntax. The ffmpeg devs do not seem to know avisynth, or any alternatives here - so I want object manipulation with a convenient syntax at all times, not just for audio/video data but literally for any data. Naturally ruby would be a good fit by default, but I am unaware of many ruby developers even wanting to go that route. If there are still any ruby developers left that is - ruby has been tanking hard in the last few years, approaching extinction level, just like perl did before.

    There has to be a better influx of new users; the old +50 years generation isn't going to keep languages alive really.

    Edit: Also I forgot: the idea and implementation is fine, I just think we need much more of that in general. Ruby is kind of in a patchy patchwork situation. Where are the epic projects? Rails is also ancient already.