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JdeBPtoday at 1:04 AM1 replyview on HN

Stéphane Chazelas would agree,

* https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/496642/5132

because the problem here is educating people with slipshod ideas about 'sh' being 'the POSIX shell' or (worse) 'the Bourne shell'. Both M. Chazelas and M. Gaigalas are making the point that 'sh' is a language that one aims to write in, not one of the many programs that sort of, sometimes, if invoked in the right way, implement that language; and a subordinate point that people are generally very poor about doing that when yet they insist that they are writing 'POSIX shell script'.

Fun facts: Standardization led by existing practice is not a simple process.

* https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/493743/5132

POSIX/SUS standardization is not a static thing. The long discussed thorny issue of echo has now subtly changed from all of those explanations given about it over the years, because in 2024 the standard was changed.

* https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/e...

M. Chazelas's own quite famous 2013 StackExchange answer on the subject has not yet been updated with the change that now incorporates -e and -E into the rule. Amusingly, it was M. Chazelas that raised defect 1222 that caused this change.

* https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/65819/5132

* https://www.austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1222


Replies

wpollocktoday at 1:26 AM

Stéphane (not "M") Chazelas is a genius. I have written him several times over the past 30 years, encouraging him to write a book about shell, POSIX, and other topics that he is an expert in. He writes very well too. I fear we will all be the poorer if/when he retires.

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