Subject: Spotted on Freshmeat: Squirrel Shell

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:37:33 +0200

Hi all!

I recently spotted a new shell called Squirrel Shell on Freshmeat.net:

http://squirrelsh.sourceforge.net/

Here is my impression from it:

1. Doing the ./configure --prefix ; make ; make install dance caused the "make 
install" stage to fail with weird installation errors. Borrowing from the 
debian/ directory there, I added --with-mime=no which 
disabled ./configure-mime (which can only handle absolute system pathnames) 
from running and as a result, it was sucessful.

2. Here's what happened in my first run of squirrelsh:

{{{{{{
$ ~/apps/squirrelsh/bin/squirrelsh
> ls
ERROR: the index 'ls' does not exist
> help
ERROR: the index 'help' does not exist
> h
ERROR: the index 'h' does not exist
> man ls
SQUIRREL ERROR: Line 1, Col 6: end of statement expected (; or lf)
> run("ls")
apps  Backup  Choices  Desktop  Download  Music  TEMP  Videos
Arcs  bin     conf     Docs     dwhelper  progs  tmp
> help()
ERROR: the index 'help' does not exist
}}}}}}

In short - not very usable. Plus, the prompts do not support readline-like 
editing.

3. The man page ( nroff -man ~/apps/squirrelsh/share/man/man1/squirrelsh.1 | 
less -isrr ) is very short, and just refers one to the two .pdf's in the 
install directory (indicated by a "<b>install_dir</b>" string in the output - 
the full path is not given), which naturally, I had little patience to read.

4. The homepage gives several examples:

http://squirrelsh.sourceforge.net/

Whereas in bash running "ls" is simply q{ls}, in squirrelsh it is 
q{run("ls")}, but it gets better:

{{{{
#!/usr/bin/squirrelsh
// Work with command line parameters
run("foo", [ __argv[1], __argv[2] ]); 
}}}}

Which is the equivalent for "foo $1 $2" in bash.

The example for matrix multiplication is shorter in squirrelsh, but it is a 
bit contrived, given that I'd use Perl or whatever for anything of that 
complexity.

5. There are many English errors in the documentation:

* "It is based on Squirrel scripting language which has these features: "

* "Cross-platform nature of Squirrel Shell lets users write one script and use 
it everywhere"

* "Actual location of  the  files  depends  on  installation  method."

* "It is based on  powerful general-purpose scripting language "Squirrel".

-----------------

In short, I was heavily disappointed from squirrelsh. It doesn't look like a 
usable shell. Seems like more developers who don't understand software 
quality enough:

http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/high-quality-software/

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
Stop Using MSIE - http://www.shlomifish.org/no-ie/

Shlomi, so what are you working on? Working on a new wiki about unit testing 
fortunes in freecell? -- Ran Eilam

---

From: "Ori Idan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:30:36 +0200

Didn't you forget the standard open source sentence "Release early release
often"?
It is probably a very early release and you should have wrote this to the
developers (without your last paragraph about them not understanding
software quality.
Also regarding the English errors in the manual, you should have pointed
them to the errors or maybe fixing them and sending the fixed manual.

-- 
Ori Idan

On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:37 PM, Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]> wrote:

> ----------------------------------------------------------

-- 
ספרים וסיפורים שכתבתי: http://www.thestories.org

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:07:52 +0200

Hi Ori!

Please separate paragraphs with an empty line, and avoid top-posting.

> Didn't you forget the standard open source sentence "Release early release

"Release early, release often" does not mean "Release crap" or don't do 
design, or do the minimal amount of thinking and UI design. Furthermore, the 
version of squirrelsh that I tested was 1.2.2. Considering that open-source 
programs should start with 0.2.x, etc. it means that it is already considered 
stable and ready-for-prime-time. But it isn't ready-for-prime-time.

> developers (without your last paragraph about them not understanding

It's not a very early release. And even in early releases, I expect to have 
documentation in a usable format, or a usable syntax or realine-integration.

> them to the errors or maybe fixing them and sending the fixed manual.

Why should I, given that squirrelsh is as unusable as it is? I've got better 
objectives to spend my time on. Meanwhile, I'm happy with bash, and there's 
also zsh, or possibly fish. I don't need to work on squirrelsh, which has 
made such a bad impression on me.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
What does "Zionism" mean? - http://xrl.us/bjn8u

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:37:26 +1100

> made such a bad impression on me.

My guess: It's A niche product.

Don't use it, Shlomi - it's not for you. I'm surprised you even wasted
your time on it, since you're evidently not a part of its niche.

-- Arik