From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <e004e732ced8e1653a716c793de55e43@google.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] v8 shell
From: "rob pike, esq." <r@geekmail.cc>
In-Reply-To: <20031113160648.GB21872@localhost.localdomain>
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Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 09:41:24 -0800
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i fought fairly hard to get the key features of the v8 shell adopted
into posix.  these included exportable functions and output from
commands like whatis that could be read as input.  but i didn't fight
hard enough because i didn't fight at every single committee meeting.
as soon as i stopped going, the changes were reverted ("thank god he's
gone").  the experience soured me for life on contributing to
standards committees.

for example, the 'builtin' trick in modern shells comes out of the v8
shell but the other half is missing.

korn shell or bash:

	$ type cd
	cd is a shell builtin
	$

v8 shell:

	$ whatis cd
	builtin cd
	$

see the difference? the latter is executable code.  why was it important
to `fix' this in the committee?  bitterness rules.

maybe that's why rc happened.  probably was a factor.  i know i asked
td to design rc, but i also did the work in creating the v8 shell. i
don't really remember.

-rob