Pete's Linux Advent Calendar 2007
The 15th day
Why I still prefer tcsh
Here is a small list of features that tcsh offers, and they are the
reason why I still prefer it over bash as interactive shell:
- rprompt
- a prompt a the right side that vanishes when the cursor reaches it
- cwdcmd
- a command executed whenever you change the directory,
for example
ls
- spelling correction
- whenever I misspell a command that tcsh doesn't find, it suggests
the correct command and offers to execute it.
- implicitcd
- change the directory by only typing in the name,
no need to type
cd
- ellipsis
- if your current working directory is really long, tcsh skips
the first parts of that name and replaces it with "..."
- REMOTEHOST
- tcsh sets this variable to the hostname your logging in from
- rmstar
- tcsh asks before running "rm *"
- watch
- tcsh notifies you whenever someone has logged on or off
- repeat
- allows to run a command the specified number of times
Unfortunately the Wishlist of tcsh contains this entry:
Rewrite the whole thing. It has taken to much beating over the
years...
So eventually I might switch to another shell, such as zsh.
