PowerShell VS Windows Terminal

I'll take this moment to point out that the PowerShell feels like a modern shell and is open source https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell (MIT license). If you want something more modern give it a try. Native support for JSON and XML and parallel streams.

That said, I'm glad to see another major release of Fish because it's for having option that we get evolution.

Download: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.4.5/PowerShell-7.4.5-win-x64.msi

PowerShell is so alien to an experienced bash/zsh/etc. user that it's an entirely different language not any kind of drop-in replacement. Its designers also refuse to add simple things to make the switch any easier (e.g. https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues/3316).

Not necessarily:

1. UNIX-compatibility aliases like "ls -> Get-ChildItem" and "cat -> Get-Content" are not defined in PowerShell on Linux or macOS. For a complete list of these, see the PowerShell source code[1] (look for "#if !UNIX").

2. A number of aliases from PowerShell ≤ 5.1 were removed in PowerShell Core (≥ 6.0), including the particularly annoying "curl -> Invoke-WebRequest" (conflicts with curl.exe) and "sc -> Set-Content" (conflicts with sc.exe).

[1] https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/blob/8ea1598964590b...

and do a no-install copy-paste deployment of powershell 7 and modules. (I'm not saying you should do this instead of using Lua, just that you can).

[1] https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases

msiexec.exe /package https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.2.6/PowerShell-7.2.6-win-x64.msi /quiet ADD_EXPLORER_CONTEXT_MENU_OPENPOWERSHELL=1 ADD_FILE_CONTEXT_MENU_RUNPOWERSHELL=1 ENABLE_PSREMOTING=1 REGISTER_MANIFEST=1 USE_MU=1 ENABLE_MU=1 ADD_PATH=1

Microsoft Terminal

[^1]: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362#issuecomm...

Some parts already have been open-sourced. For example, the console host component has been open sourced here: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal

And the FAT filesystem driver: https://github.com/microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/tree/mai...

Maybe they could consider an Apple-style approach: open source the core of the kernel and text-mode user space but leave the GUI closed.

Of course, open sourcing everything would be even better, but that might too big of a step for them. Open sourcing the non-GUI core could be a good initial step, whether or not it ends up going further.

cmd.exe or the new https://github.com/microsoft/terminal ?

A quick off-the-cuff remark based solely on the title: in 2024, I think the state of the terminal has never been better, in large part to Microsoft making a high quality terminal easily available to everyone on Windows [1]

As an application author, I love being able to assume that all major platforms have a good terminal and that my favorite terminal rendering libraries should Just Work on all of them

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal

A Microsoft employee recently (~6 months) opened a Github issue to discuss a command line editor for Windows: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/discussions/16440