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I've been using Unix in some form or another since maybe 1986. It is an enormously effective lever. But the grody cruft isn't getting better -- there's an upper boundary on how happy I can be using it, but it's an aesthetic and not a technical one.

Partly this is nostalgia, and partly it's diminishing marginal returns. Nothing that happens to me is going to be as jarring a leap into the future as sitting down in front of a PC RT was, and I guess that's sad.

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I read your "http://homonculus.net/blog/2012/11/11/what-shell-should-i-us... post. I wanted to comment though you may or may not be interested. I use ash (Almquist Sh) for my 'non-interactive' script executions. For interactive flow I use zsh. For root on my BSD boxes I use tcsh and bash on my Funtoo boxes simply because I don't care to alter or customize the root account. I would be interested in what your inferring to with reference to `grody cruft`.

For less grody cruft, and as a challenge to up your game, try layering plan9port or the Inferno VM over your *nix.

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