WinZsh (native Windows port of zsh) resurrected

WinZsh (native Windows port of zsh) resurrected

[Tim Ayres]

I would like to announce that the old native Windows port of zsh by Amol 
Deshpande has been resurrected, relicensed under the 3-clause BSD 
license, and given a new home on Sourceforge.net. You can find it at 
[1]. Please try it out and report any bugs you find on the Sourceforge 
trackers.

If you are interested in helping with development please feel free to 
contact me.  I am a fairly novice C programmer, but trying to learn 
quickly, and any assistance is welcome. The biggest priority right now 
is getting the code to compile under a modern compiler, preferably MinGW.

I'm not sure who maintains the FAQ, but it would be great if it could be 
updated with the new location of WinZsh. Also, I noted that the FAQ 
version on Sourceforge [2] is out of date compared with the version 
currently distributed with zsh.

Thanks,
Tim Ayres

[1] http://zsh-nt.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://zsh.sourceforge.net/FAQ/

Re: WinZsh (native Windows port of zsh) resurrected

[Marc Chantreux]

hello Tim,

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 08:03:42PM -0600, Tim Ayres wrote:
> I would like to announce that the old native Windows port of zsh by Amol  
> Deshpande has been resurrected, relicensed under the 3-clause BSD  
> license, and given a new home on Sourceforge.net. You can find it at  
> [1]. Please try it out and report any bugs you find on the Sourceforge  
> trackers.

I use to have a daily use of the amol's port of zsh then tcsh on
windows. GNU tools were provided by 

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/

I gave up because gnuwin32 tools was damn slow. cygwin's zsh and tools
were astonishing faster didn't provide a nice enougth integration to
windows (cygpath is borring too borring for daily use!).

I played with monad (became powershell) which provides a much superior
scripting language but comes with no decent edition system.

I didn't use windows for years now but i'm curious and plan to try
reactos if i would have spare time so my question is: how do you plan to
use zsh? which what tools ? would your port provides vi keybindings ? 

regards

Re: WinZsh (native Windows port of zsh) resurrected

[Tim Ayres]

Hi Marc,

I currently use GnuWin32 as well, if only because I am not aware of 
another currently maintained source of Unix tools. I haven't done speed 
tests between the GnuWin32 tools and Cygwin, but the GnuWin32 tools are 
plenty fast for me. I don't think I would choose shell scripting for an 
application where speed was a priority anyway ;). GnuWin32 provides most 
of the tools a Unix user needs to feel productive, but a Bourne 
compatible shell is a glaring omission.

I'm one of those people who use Linux at home, but am forced to use 
Windows at work. I use WinZsh the same way I use bash/zsh on Linux, both 
as an interactive environment and to write shell scripts. As time goes 
on I'm accumulating a collection of useful shell scripts and becoming a 
better shell programmer. Many of these scripts would be useful on 
Windows as well, however I have no desire to try to rewrite them as Dos 
batch files (if it would even be possible). Powershell may be cool, but 
it's a new language to learn and it's still Windows only so that's a 
deal breaker right there. WinZsh lets me run my shell scripts unmodified 
on Windows, which is pretty cool. Nowadays I even write & test bash/zsh 
scripts on Windows and then run them on my Linux box at home.

I've used Amol's old port for years, and it disappointed me that it was 
unmaintained and was becoming increasingly difficult to find, and seemed 
in danger of disappearing entirely. So eventually I decided to just take 
up maintenance myself, that's the fun of open source right?
> would your port provides vi keybindings ? 
>   
The eventual goal is to provide all the features of zsh on Unix.

Cheers,
Tim

Re: WinZsh (native Windows port of zsh) resurrected

[Marc Chantreux]

hello Tim and thanks for replying. 

On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 01:16:26PM -0600, Tim Ayres wrote:
>> would your port provides vi keybindings ?   
> The eventual goal is to provide all the features of zsh on Unix.

so i wish long live to your project i would use if i came to a
windows-like os again.

regards
mc 

Re: WinZsh (native Windows port of zsh) resurrected

[Peter Stephenson]

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:03:42 -0600
Tim Ayres <timothy.j.ayres@gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, I noted that the FAQ
> version on Sourceforge [2] is out of date compared with the version 
> currently distributed with zsh.

I've finally fixed this.  If someone wants to maintain the web pages, all
they need is a Sourceforge account.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>            Software Engineer
Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070                   Cambridge Silicon Radio Limited
Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK


Member of the CSR plc group of companies. CSR plc registered in England and Wales, registered number 4187346, registered office Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, United Kingdom