From Bash to Z Shell
If your usage of Mac OS X is the slightest bit “technical” then you should do yourself the favor of getting familiar with the extremely powerful shell environment.
Even if you already know a dozen scripting languages far more expressive than the shell, there are still contexts in which the shell is just better suited for the job, and understanding the POSIX environment is knowledge that is very valuable even outside the shell.
James Edward Gray has a review of From Bash to Z Shell which sounds like just the book you want to pick up, quoting from his review:
I’ve already noticed dramatic differences. I’m using shell loops at the command-line now to process many files at once; I actually understand shell quoting and when to use which types of quotes and escapes to get the desired effect; I can easily strip off a file extension or get a directory name from a full path when I need one; I make constant use of the command history now whether I’m searching for a past command, correcting a typo, or just pulling a single argument out of a previous command for reuse in a new command; and I’ve written a few shell functions to provide shortcuts to my common tasks.
12 Feb 2008 | # Kevin Ballard wrote…
Funny, I already do all that in bash.
12 Feb 2008 | # Allan Odgaard wrote…
Just to clarify, the book title is (likely) meant as “Looking at shells from Bash to Z Shell” rather than (the more direct interpretation) “Migrating from Bash to Z Shell” (hence Kevin’s comment above).
12 Feb 2008 | # Dominic Mitchell wrote…
Allan is right. The book is (mostly) applicable to both bash and zsh. I think the last two chapters are about writing your own completion, and zsh really takes over there. But you should take a look at zsh anyway. I don’t know what I’d do without recursive globbing these days. And the completion completely rocks.
Aside from that, the book is well written and a good way to get to know your shell better.
14 Feb 2008 | # Andrey Tarantsov wrote…
I’m using zsh daily because it can merge histories from multiple session. Also I like the powerful completion. Other than that, I have a config that makes zsh look and behave mostly as bash.
05 Mar 2008 | # Darryl Zurn wrote…
I ♥ zsh
05 Mar 2008 | # Darryl Zurn wrote…
Oops, let’s try again:
I ♥ (love) zsh. I especially love the command completion, history, and the prompting abilities.
There’s some great thinking behind this, and it’s the first and only shell I’ve really learned. It’s syntax makes a lot more sense, and it’s actively supported so that helps a lot finding who else has run into problems.
10 Apr 2008 | # William Scott wrote…
I’ve made some zsh-specific textmate functions and bundles if anyone is interested:
http://xanana.ucsc.edu/xtal/textmate_iterm.html