Tons of Fun: If you want to check zsh, best interactive shell, then check this thread on bsdforums.org:
http://bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51133

I have been working on bash for the past and i had an opportunity to work on csh too.I dont have any idea about other shell, may be they are powerful too.But i feel bash is cool.My vote is for bash

Rakesh UV

Ok, maybe I'm just completely out of the loop but what is "fish"?

check this:
http://vermaden.deviantart.com/art/FISH-vs-ZSH-57890644

I vote for fish, very well thought for interactive use, and very simple to use and extend (compare the completion syntax of fish and zsh!)
And please don't cancel this poll, the suggestion of asking for the favourite shell _after_ bash is not bad, i think

ksh all the way baby!

Bash, of course.

I used to collect shells although the very first Unix Shell I used was bash by way of Knoppix, FreeBSD had a default of tcsh at the time I used it so it became my first primary shell.


I think there are only 2 main reasons why bash would be #1 and impossible to topple.

0/ It is default for most distro

1/ It is installed on about every distro

2/ many people probably don't care to change shells (unless maybe you spend 60-100 hr a week in one...)

This is much the same reason as I /ONLY/ write shell scripts with a POSIX compatible Bourne Shell (/bin/sh) in mind and never with Bourne Again or Korn specifics.. Because I ain't gonna change the darn script to run on some UNIX machines /bin/sh just because I was using Bash or Korn when I wrote the thing :-P

In general usage I've found bash and various korn shells to be more or less the 'same' for interactive use. I used the Tenex C Shell for a long time as far as my standard shell goes but I've come to prefer some thing more Bourne styled because I don't have to adjust my thinking to use the shell on any unix or Linux box.


zsh is my default shell on my workstation now're days because it can function 'as expected' for some one used to Bourne style shells and has just about every feature I could ever want.even if I don't use half of them haha. It's arguably the best shell I've used but due to the nature of things I'm fully used to working with several shells.


About all I ask of a shell for interactive use is command line editing, tab completion, and a history feature is nice but could replace the CLI Editing hehe. I use zsh and korn daily fyi.

My ~/.zshrc file is actually a semi-universal Bourne settings file of sorts, it adjusts what it sets when read based on $SHELL and uname because I got tired of splitting config between various shells I bump into on differing OSes.


zsh all the way ;-)

My shell isn't here!
 

I use psh whenever possible it's nice to use perl constructs without running a perl script. ;)

Bash for daily use but KSH at my work place (default).

maybe we could have the poll listing your fav three
but as a newbie to a lot of this , leave all these in so that we newbies can know the best programs\apps to use.

some pearls of wisdom i'm learning from you all , such as

There are 10 kind of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't!

I am still laughing thanks

Used bash since I started using GNU/Linux. I like it.

Bash. The only one I really have ever used. I am wondering if in the coming years there will be any additions to this category, since there is not too many other places we could go by introducing another shell alternative.

An excellent idea. Perhaps rename the poll "Alternate Shell of the Year". As long as bash isn't among the choices, I hope folks would understand its purpose.


This brings up another issue: the candidate lists for the various polls. Would it be possible to have pre-voting ("open primary" :)) period, perhaps in December, when the lists are discussed? This would eliminate biasing the results because early voters didn't have the full set of choices.

I've been working on HP-UX and Solaris boxes a lot over the last few years and I prefer ksh over bash. Maybe bash can be set up to do the same but using vi-like commands at the shell makes me a lot more productive.


Edit: set -o vi for vi-like commands