On Sat, 27 Sep 1997, Ted Lemon wrote:

: I'm a very fast typist, and I still get a great deal of benefit out of
: shell history recall, command line editing and filename completion.
: I don't particularly care if it's in sh, since I don't use sh, but if
: other people do use sh and do care, I think it's perfectly reasonable
: to add it.   I don't understand this macho desire to prevent all
: ease-of-use upgrades - if you want to be macho, use MS-DOS!   I mean,
: who really *needs* multiprocessing?

Here's the deal.  As-is, the SPARC version of /bin/sh is 350K.  Take out
libedit and job control et. al., and make it a minimal shell, and it's about
200K.  The 75% code increase for all these added "features" makes a system
that uses shell scripts heavily (read:  your average server type machine)
perform less well.  Probably not much, but it does make a difference on,
say, slow m68k and vax....  I'm actually compiling a stripped down sh for
m68k to test speeds on a 68030-16.

If you want job control, line editing, history, why not just _use_bash_? 
It's not called the Bourne Again Shell for no reason.  No commercial unixen
that I know of have extensive line editing and other features in sh, csh, or
ksh--you're typically "expected" to install your own shell for the added
Stuff.  Most SVR4 variants even ship two versions of sh--'sh' and 'jsh', the
former lacking job control, and the other supplied with it.  The reason for
two versions?  Sh without job control loads faster!

=====
== Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Business tv@lucent.com)
== I know you like the Internet, Bobby.  Now go eat your Frosted Flakes.