8 ms·

I don't see it that way. The focus over the qualifier of whether it's "drop-in" misses the point. How else are people going to interpret and use "a modern repl

I don't see it that way. The focus over the qualifier of whether it's "drop-in" misses the point. How else are people going to interpret and use "a modern replacement for ls", in practice? Not to replace the file /bin/ls itself. Users will symlink/PATH/alias exa in as "ls" in front of /bin/ls in their shell for convenience.

chris_wot 9y ago
So what if they do?
- git-pull 9y ago
  Shell scripts break. If it's not a parity with ls(1), the output and arguments won't be compatible. I forgot to add: Having colors / fancy output when you just want to pipe information around the shell is of no value. IMO it goes against the spirit of what commands like ls are meant to do, and the behavior exa provides is better placed, and already done well, via shell configuration (e.g. oh-my-zsh, presto, pure)
lobster_johnson 9y ago
So? Nobody is going to use this to replace "ls" in scripts. Are you really arguing against the creation of competing tools? "ack" shouldn't exist because "grep" already exists? "htop" shouldn't exist because there's "top"?
- git-pull 9y ago
  Correct, you don't need this tool. Put it this way: Think of it like a Socratic dialog. Just because a replacement for ls(1) may not be beneficial due to configuration and customization already being commonplace, isn't the same as saying the mere notion of a competing unix CLI tool is bad. top(1) doesn't allow color configuration. I use htop(1), and like it. ls(1) already has color customization via LS_COLORS and long-list format via -l in ls. And about 10+ other output options. It's quite flexible. git status can be shown via `git status`, and via the PS1 in oh-my-zsh/pure. > Nobody is going to use this to replace "ls" in scripts. I'm concerned they will, and not recognize it. To beginner and novice shell users, it's easier to cargo cult stuff in and not know what's happening. And things will break in ways that's a nightmare for them to troubleshoot. My gut instinct is being verified by comments in this thread mentioning alias'ing in exa as ls.
  - chris_wot 9y ago
    If anyone is silly enough to alias to exa, then their scripts will fail. A replacement doesn't have to be a drop in. Server admins who alias it will pay the price, so they won't do it.
creatonez 9y ago
AFAIK bash aliases never bleed into the scripts you run. So an alias should be relatively harmless.

chris_wot 9y ago

So what if they do?

git-pull 9y ago
Shell scripts break. If it's not a parity with ls(1), the output and arguments won't be compatible. I forgot to add: Having colors / fancy output when you just want to pipe information around the shell is of no value. IMO it goes against the spirit of what commands like ls are meant to do, and the behavior exa provides is better placed, and already done well, via shell configuration (e.g. oh-my-zsh, presto, pure)

lobster_johnson 9y ago

So? Nobody is going to use this to replace "ls" in scripts. Are you really arguing against the creation of competing tools? "ack" shouldn't exist because "grep" already exists? "htop" shouldn't exist because there's "top"?

git-pull 9y ago
Correct, you don't need this tool. Put it this way: Think of it like a Socratic dialog. Just because a replacement for ls(1) may not be beneficial due to configuration and customization already being commonplace, isn't the same as saying the mere notion of a competing unix CLI tool is bad. top(1) doesn't allow color configuration. I use htop(1), and like it. ls(1) already has color customization via LS_COLORS and long-list format via -l in ls. And about 10+ other output options. It's quite flexible. git status can be shown via `git status`, and via the PS1 in oh-my-zsh/pure. > Nobody is going to use this to replace "ls" in scripts. I'm concerned they will, and not recognize it. To beginner and novice shell users, it's easier to cargo cult stuff in and not know what's happening. And things will break in ways that's a nightmare for them to troubleshoot. My gut instinct is being verified by comments in this thread mentioning alias'ing in exa as ls.
- chris_wot 9y ago
  If anyone is silly enough to alias to exa, then their scripts will fail. A replacement doesn't have to be a drop in. Server admins who alias it will pay the price, so they won't do it.

creatonez 9y ago

AFAIK bash aliases never bleed into the scripts you run. So an alias should be relatively harmless.