script VS nushell

I use Go. You can run scripts with go run directly, and this package makes shell tasks easy: https://github.com/bitfield/script

If you're not deeply familiar with Go there is one detail missing from this post (though it's in the script README) - what a complete program looks like. Here's the example from https://github.com/bitfield/script#a-realistic-use-case

    package main

Imho also worth mentioning: https://github.com/bitfield/script

I would say bitfield/script is the closest thing to plumbum. You should check out this article written by the author.

There are lua and Go-script options. My impression is that a few are well accepted but perhaps just a little less widely used than the first two. I cannot speak from personal experience on them. Shopify has a Lua 5.2 port: https://github.com/Shopify/go-lua and I know https://github.com/bitfield/script is one of the Go-like scripting languages, but I think it's more for a shell script replacement than embedding.

Parallel to my other comment, u/Akirapearl, if you find yourself getting annoyed at Go’s system-language focus, you might find John’s “script” Go library useful: https://github.com/bitfield/script

It took me a while to find the link to the library "script" and it's repo - https://github.com/bitfield/script

I rather nushell for this purpose, it's more fun to write and easier to read.

https://www.nushell.sh/

These are just three small examples of what this shell written in Rust allows. The features are many and many more, but I'll leave it up to you to discover and enjoy them; I'm currently playing around with it and it's giving me a lot of satisfaction and immediacy, now it has a fixed place among the tools I use when working! The project is Open Source, so if you want to contribute, I invite you, as always, to do so, I leave you the link to the repo here!

Any thoughts on fish as compared to nushell [0]? It's similar to PowerShell in its philosophy and is also written in Rust.

[0] https://github.com/nushell/nushell

> In PowerShell, structured output is the default and it seems to work very well.

PowerShell goes a step beyond JSON, by supporting actual mutable objects. So instead of just passing through structured data, you effectively pass around opaque objects that allow you to go back to earlier pipeline stages, and invoke methods, if I understand correctly: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsof....

I'm rather fond of wrappers like jc and libxo, and experimental shells like https://www.nushell.sh/. These still focus on passing data, not objects with executable methods. On some level, I find this comfortable: Structured data still feels pretty Unix-like, if that makes sense? If I want actual objects, then it's probably time to fire up Python or Ruby.

Knowing when to switch from a shell script to a full-fledged programming language is important, even if your shell is basically awesome and has good programming features.

Maybe if the "popular" shells, but http://www.nushell.sh/ is looking better and better

Yeah agreed, especially now that PowerShell is available cross-platform.

Nushell[1] also seems like a promising alternative, but I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet.

[1]: https://www.nushell.sh/

I also discovered an existing discussion[1] related to this topic which includes a link[2] to a "helper to call nushell nuon/json/yaml commands from bash/fish/zsh" and a comment[3] that the current nushell dev focus is "on getting the experience inside nushell right and [we] probably won't be able to dedicate design time to get the interface of native Nu commands with an outside POSIX shell right and stable.".

[0] https://gitlab.com/RancidBacon/notes_public/-/blob/main/note...

[1] "Expose some commands to external world #6554": https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/6554

[2] https://github.com/cruel-intentions/devshell-files/blob/mast...

[3] https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/6554#issuecomment-...

I appreciate what projects like Nushell and Murex are trying to address, but having a saner scripting language and passing structured data in pipelines is not worth the drawbacks for me.

For one, Bash scripting is not so bad if you set some sane defaults and use ShellCheck. Sure, it has its quirks, but all languages do. Even so, the same golden rule applies: use a "real" programming language if your problem exceeds a certain level of complexity. This is relative and will depend on your discomfort threshold, but using the right tool for the job is always a good practice. No matter how good the shell language is, I would hesitate to write and maintain a complex project in it.

And for general QoL improvements with interactive use, Zsh is a fine shell, while still being POSIX compatible.

[1]: https://github.com/nushell/nushell/blob/main/crates/nu-comma...

[2]: https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/5027

[3]: https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/9310