Well most of the previous posters already pointed out, that it is possible to return if one wants to (there is still a strong demand on really skilled people). So I will not repeat that now - just want to mention some little things you've maybe forgotten in the past ten years about our great life. Don't take it too seriously!:-)
No more boring eavenings in front of your TV!
Tired of sitting in front of your TV all eavenings? Forget about that! There's always something broken which has urgently to be fixed until tomorrow. And if it really should happen that everything is on track, your management will surely cut down the deadline for your current project a month or two...
Refreshing new discussions in your partnership!
Enjoy dramatic discussions with your partner crying that she's moving back to her mother. Look fascinated at your children's eyes, wonder who that other man in the door may be, after finishing a 2-year project in 6 months (including weekends). This may even give you a chance to completely start over with a brand new partner:-)
Always fascinating new development kits!
So, after spending the last two years learning about your programming environment you feel your job is getting boring? NO! Your management is looking after you! In a fascinating move they decided to introduce a new platform which is - of course - 99% compatible - the lacking 1% is only the operating system, the hardware, the programming language, the database system... If your management should not be smart enough to make such an decision, your OS vendor will!
Get known!
You feel depressed because noone seems to recognize you? As a programmer everybody in your company knows you, for you are surely responsible for all the problems they have with handling their computers! Learn how to cover and avoid crowds of outraged people - only celebrities like the Stones can share that kind of feeling.
Don't call - they'll call!
If you decide to start as a freelancer you'll have even more fun! Your customers will refuse to pay until bank employees you've never heard of will call you on a regular basis, telling you that you don't have to worry about too much money on your account. This may even offer you a great chance to look for a new flat.
Start interesting studies on hotel equipment!
Once you become better and better you'll be offered a great chance: Travel around the world and learn that a business hotel in San Francisco has the same furnishing as in Kopenhagen or Munich. While impressed you can also improve your skill to survive without sleep for days when hurrying to your customer after an 16 hour transcontinental flight in the tourist class.
Enter, if you dare!
Convinced? Join now! Welcome back! -- My uncertainty principle:
(...) Bash is the default shell for most unix systems (...)
Phew - that heavily depends on what is meant with default shell and most unix systems.
What is a default shell for a given system?
One one hand you can specify default shell as the login shell that will be used when creating a new user account with the system defaults. For that can be changed individually by each system administrator, your above question can only be answered by asking all of the sysadmins =:-)
On the other hand you could say that the default shell is that interpreter that will be used by most of the system scripts of an given system. In that case I'd tend to say it's the Bourne Shell sh(1) for AT&T based systems, the C-Shell csh(1) for BSD based systems and the Bourne Again SHell bash(1) for Linux systems. Someone posted, that on AIX systems the Korn Shell ksh(1) is being used. I cannot verify that for I have no access to an AIX system right now.
What is meant by most unix systems?
If you count each machine running a UNIX or UNIX-like Operating System it's difficult to say for noone knows exactly how much Linux installations are really out there. If they outnumber all other UNIX machines bash(1) would be the winner, otherwise sh(1).
When you're only counting UNIX and UNIX-like Operating Systems I'd tend to say that most of them are AT&T based and so that the winner would be sh(1).
About shells
For I saw many posters mixing up things:
The Bourne Shellsh(1) (written by S. R. Bourne at the Bell Labs) is still the standard shell on most AT&T based UNIX implementations. A main reason is that almost all of the system scripts are written in sh(1) syntax.
The C-Shellcsh(1) was introduced when the University of Berkeley (UCB) released their Berkeley System Distribution (BSD-UNIX) and therefore became very popular by it's users. The biggest tradeoff with csh(1) as a standard shell is the missing compatibility with sh(1) for its syntax supposed to be C-like (I never could agree with that - but this is just my point of view). Although you can specify the command interpreter with #!<interpreter> you still cannot overcome some problems (for example try to source a csh(1) script from within a sh(1) script). Nevertheless - when adding user accounts on BSD-based machines you'll often end up with the csh(1) as the default login shell.
bash(1) (the Bourne again shell) was written as part of the GNU project to implement an own free UNIX system. It's syntax is meant to be compatible with sh(1). On most Linux distributions/bin/bash is linked to/bin/sh. One of the major reasons so many people prefer bash(1) over sh(1) is that they added a command line history and command line editing beyond the erase/retype art.
Similary tcsh(1) is an extension to the csh interpreter with command line editing features.
I think I don't have anything to say about the Korn Shell ksh(1) for the master himself has already spoken.
FLAMING ISSUES
Discussing what may be the best shell is somewhat like discussing what someone prefers having for breakfast. Just do it the UNIX way: call exec and use whatever you prefer.
If you want to write scripts for being executed on different machines make a) sure your script starts with #!interpreter> and interpreter is a well known standard.
Slashdot Mirror
No more boring eavenings in front of your TV!
Tired of sitting in front of your TV all eavenings? Forget about that! There's always something broken which has urgently to be fixed until tomorrow. And if it really should happen that everything is on track, your management will surely cut down the deadline for your current project a month or two...
Refreshing new discussions in your partnership!
Enjoy dramatic discussions with your partner crying that she's moving back to her mother. Look fascinated at your children's eyes, wonder who that other man in the door may be, after finishing a 2-year project in 6 months (including weekends). This may even give you a chance to completely start over with a brand new partner :-)
Always fascinating new development kits!
So, after spending the last two years learning about your programming environment you feel your job is getting boring? NO! Your management is looking after you! In a fascinating move they decided to introduce a new platform which is - of course - 99% compatible - the lacking 1% is only the operating system, the hardware, the programming language, the database system... If your management should not be smart enough to make such an decision, your OS vendor will!
Get known!
You feel depressed because noone seems to recognize you? As a programmer everybody in your company knows you, for you are surely responsible for all the problems they have with handling their computers! Learn how to cover and avoid crowds of outraged people - only celebrities like the Stones can share that kind of feeling.
Don't call - they'll call!
If you decide to start as a freelancer you'll have even more fun! Your customers will refuse to pay until bank employees you've never heard of will call you on a regular basis, telling you that you don't have to worry about too much money on your account. This may even offer you a great chance to look for a new flat.
Start interesting studies on hotel equipment!
Once you become better and better you'll be offered a great chance: Travel around the world and learn that a business hotel in San Francisco has the same furnishing as in Kopenhagen or Munich. While impressed you can also improve your skill to survive without sleep for days when hurrying to your customer after an 16 hour transcontinental flight in the tourist class.
Enter, if you dare!
Convinced? Join now! Welcome back!
--
My uncertainty principle:
Phew - that heavily depends on what is meant with default shell and most unix systems.
What is a default shell for a given system?
One one hand you can specify default shell as the login shell that will be used when creating a new user account with the system defaults. For that can be changed individually by each system administrator, your above question can only be answered by asking all of the sysadmins =:-)
On the other hand you could say that the default shell is that interpreter that will be used by most of the system scripts of an given system. In that case I'd tend to say it's the Bourne Shell sh(1) for AT&T based systems, the C-Shell csh(1) for BSD based systems and the Bourne Again SHell bash(1) for Linux systems. Someone posted, that on AIX systems the Korn Shell ksh(1) is being used. I cannot verify that for I have no access to an AIX system right now.
What is meant by most unix systems?
If you count each machine running a UNIX or UNIX-like Operating System it's difficult to say for noone knows exactly how much Linux installations are really out there. If they outnumber all other UNIX machines bash(1) would be the winner, otherwise sh(1).
When you're only counting UNIX and UNIX-like Operating Systems I'd tend to say that most of them are AT&T based and so that the winner would be sh(1).
About shells
For I saw many posters mixing up things:
The Bourne Shell sh(1) (written by S. R. Bourne at the Bell Labs) is still the standard shell on most AT&T based UNIX implementations. A main reason is that almost all of the system scripts are written in sh(1) syntax.
The C-Shell csh(1) was introduced when the University of Berkeley (UCB) released their Berkeley System Distribution (BSD-UNIX) and therefore became very popular by it's users. The biggest tradeoff with csh(1) as a standard shell is the missing compatibility with sh(1) for its syntax supposed to be C-like (I never could agree with that - but this is just my point of view). Although you can specify the command interpreter with #! <interpreter> you still cannot overcome some problems (for example try to source a csh(1) script from within a sh(1) script). Nevertheless - when adding user accounts on BSD-based machines you'll often end up with the csh(1) as the default login shell.
bash(1) (the Bourne again shell) was written as part of the GNU project to implement an own free UNIX system. It's syntax is meant to be compatible with sh(1). On most Linux distributions /bin/bash is linked to /bin/sh. One of the major reasons so many people prefer bash(1) over sh(1) is that they added a command line history and command line editing beyond the erase/retype art.
Similary tcsh(1) is an extension to the csh interpreter with command line editing features.
I think I don't have anything to say about the Korn Shell ksh(1) for the master himself has already spoken.
FLAMING ISSUES
Discussing what may be the best shell is somewhat like discussing what someone prefers having for breakfast. Just do it the UNIX way: call exec and use whatever you prefer.
If you want to write scripts for being executed on different machines make a) sure your script starts with #! interpreter> and interpreter is a well known standard.
Cheers,
Klaus
--
My uncertainty principle: