At 03:57 PM 02/22/2002 -0500, Matt Calder wrote:
Right, what windows lacks is a decent shell in which to use these
tools. If anyone knows otherwise please share.
Last time I investigated, most of the Unix shells had been ported to
Windows, if that's what you mean by "decent." Most of them are available free.
A more MS-like shell is available commercially. That is 4NT (or 4DOS for
the DOS-based Windows versions) from JP Software. Those shells provide
command aliasing and abbreviation; directory history recall; command
recall, completion, and editing; ability to associate command files with
interpreters; and more, while retaining quite close compatibility with the
native MS shells. What the JP programs don't provide is a direct
translation of Unix shell scripting languages (which to me are overly
cryptic); however, you can easily use Python or other scripting language
(or use the 4NT/4DOS extended batch language, certainly no worse than that
of the Unix shells).
Another option would be to install a complete Unix emulation layer, like
the MKS toolkit or (I believe) cygwin.
There are excellent Windows character-based file managers, editors, etc.,
available for free or at nominal cost.
Those are some of the options for making Windows shell usage more
interesting and productive. Whether any person will find them as good as,
worse than, or about the same as some of the Unix shells will be a matter
of taste (and perhaps habit).
(Note that none of the above should be construed as official NOAA opinion
or endorsement.)
--
Michael Prager, Ph.D. <Mike.Prager@noaa.gov>
NOAA Beaufort Laboratory
Beaufort, North Carolina 28516
http://shrimp.ccfhrb.noaa.gov/~mprager/
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