This looks great. We have a lot of bash tools because it's the only stable interpreter that we have readily available on all our systems. But bash is a pain to write so this might actually make things easier.
#!/usr/bin/tcc -run
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
printf("Hello from C!\n");
for (int i = 1; i < argc; ++i)
printf("argument %d: %s\n", i, argv[i]);
return 0;
}
And ready is your cscript :)
$ chmod u+x cscript && ./cscript hello world
Hello from C!
argument 1: hello
argument 2: world
(I can't even articulate why I love it so much that this works)
Bash is great for orchestrating other Unix tools into an automated workflow. Only when that workflow requires stuff that Bash doesn't have is it time to break out Python. Integrate Shellcheck into your editor, and you get automated help for writing more reliable Bash.
Thank you, but... why not just write in Bash, or the shell you prefer? Why learn a yet another opinionated wrapper?
Yes, Bash or any shell is a very complex and utterly environment dependent language to approach with all due care for security and compatibility, yet hence the lack of wrapper that may not even be aware of these crucial cases at all.
There are other communities where movement in the language came from outside tooling that built extensions on top of the language, such as Sass or TypeScript.
It always comes to be a social problem. Sort of. I want to use X instead of Y, but maybe everyone does not want the same, or adaption of X is harder in technology wise. So I use wrapper Z that compiles to Y, and avoid some problems, but bring new problems. Maybe these problems are smaller ones than just keeping to use Y directly.
bash is really painful to use for anything beyond the most rudimentary logic. Bourne and Mashey were terrible language designers. (By contrast, Thompson's V6 shell is very elegant, if limited.)
That said, this should just be a shell itself and not something that generates into other shell dialects. Otherwise, why not use Ruby or something like it that has actual expressive power?
> That said, this should just be a shell itself and not something that generates into other shell dialects. Otherwise, why not use Ruby or something like it that has actual expressive power?
I'm guessing the advantage here would be that the compiled "bytecode" (the resulting bash) can be distributed to systems that would then not need to have Amber installed. (And vs. a real binary from, e.g., Go/Rust/etc., it isn't tied to the platform, either.)
Vs. a Ruby script would require Ruby as a run-time dependency; Amber here is effectively a compile-time dependency.
Python 3 is available basically everywhere these days though, so I think there's still a lot of merit to just using a higher level language like you suggest. Even Ruby, while not available out of the box, is not exactly hard to get on most OSes.
This looks great. We have a lot of bash tools because it's the only stable interpreter that we have readily available on all our systems. But bash is a pain to write so this might actually make things easier.
How many places do you have Bash, but not AWK?
Any language is a shell script if you're brave enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29
Exactly
And ready is your cscript :) (I can't even articulate why I love it so much that this works)> Typescript to bash
Literally the worst of both worlds.
Bash is great for orchestrating other Unix tools into an automated workflow. Only when that workflow requires stuff that Bash doesn't have is it time to break out Python. Integrate Shellcheck into your editor, and you get automated help for writing more reliable Bash.
Just wanted to say that I think you did a great job with your examples showing why someone might be interested in this language.
Much needed. I have hard time understanding bash.
unclear use case imo - this sacrifices the ergonomics of actual bash scripting, and hides it behind another language
If your script is complex enough to need a higher level language you might as well just switch to python
Another alternative for writing Bash is Babashka, which is a Clojure dialect.
Thank you, but... why not just write in Bash, or the shell you prefer? Why learn a yet another opinionated wrapper?
Yes, Bash or any shell is a very complex and utterly environment dependent language to approach with all due care for security and compatibility, yet hence the lack of wrapper that may not even be aware of these crucial cases at all.
Your argument is down to the weights.
There are other communities where movement in the language came from outside tooling that built extensions on top of the language, such as Sass or TypeScript.
It always comes to be a social problem. Sort of. I want to use X instead of Y, but maybe everyone does not want the same, or adaption of X is harder in technology wise. So I use wrapper Z that compiles to Y, and avoid some problems, but bring new problems. Maybe these problems are smaller ones than just keeping to use Y directly.
If you don't want to use it, don't use it
bash is really painful to use for anything beyond the most rudimentary logic. Bourne and Mashey were terrible language designers. (By contrast, Thompson's V6 shell is very elegant, if limited.)
That said, this should just be a shell itself and not something that generates into other shell dialects. Otherwise, why not use Ruby or something like it that has actual expressive power?
> That said, this should just be a shell itself and not something that generates into other shell dialects. Otherwise, why not use Ruby or something like it that has actual expressive power?
I'm guessing the advantage here would be that the compiled "bytecode" (the resulting bash) can be distributed to systems that would then not need to have Amber installed. (And vs. a real binary from, e.g., Go/Rust/etc., it isn't tied to the platform, either.)
Vs. a Ruby script would require Ruby as a run-time dependency; Amber here is effectively a compile-time dependency.
Python 3 is available basically everywhere these days though, so I think there's still a lot of merit to just using a higher level language like you suggest. Even Ruby, while not available out of the box, is not exactly hard to get on most OSes.
In a world where AI can generate any code for any environment, is there a need for another language?
On the other hand, we're at a point for a binary language (or standard / framework) that one AI/LLM creates and another one validates.
What are we missing?
We're missing AI that doesn't still its hand held every step of the way.