From: Charles Plager <cplager+news@...>
Date: 2005-09-05T23:01:27+09:00
Subject: Re: windows shell

Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 9/4/05, Gavin Kistner <gavin@refinery.com> wrote:
>>On Sep 4, 2005, at 6:29 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote:
>>>Frankly, cmd.exe is a lot better than most people think that it is.
>>>I've never needed anything else, and prefer using cmd.exe than
>>>cygwin/bash on Windows.
>>
>>The things that drive me crazy about cmd.exe, and the reason I'd
>>personally be looking for a replacement, are:
>>   * Ridiculously hard to copy/paste
> 
> 
> Um. If you have "QuickEdit" on (I *always* do), then any mouse selection
> will set up copy. Enter is required to make it happen.

The column copy mode by default is ridiculous.

>>   * Inability to resize the number of columns on the fly
> 
> This isn't something that has affected me often, but if you have
> something where you want to unwrap long output, I can see that it might
> bother you (because the shell forces a \r\n).

I find that this can be a real problem (especially when running other 
people's programs)

>>The block selection is sometimes convenient and the command history
>>and path completion aren't substandard, but those are about the best
>>things I can say about it.
> 
> 
> Well, the other "best" thing is that it doesn't force you to adopt a
> non-standard filesystem view.

I think you don't understand the point of Cygwin: "Cygwin is a 
Linux-like environment for Windows."  If you don't like linux, then 
don't use Cygwin.

If you're never going to work in a posix environment, then finding a 
good shell in windows is probably what you want to do.  If, however, you 
work both in Windows and Linux-land, then there aren't very

[snip]

> 
> I do all of my Ruby development on Windows boxes. Those who were at
> RubyConf last year saw my primary development platform (a Tablet PC).

Well, that explains a lot.

Charles