What is Elvish?
Elvish is an open source shell and scripting language for Linux/UNIX systems. It aims to combine the interactivity and convenience of shells like bash or zsh with the rich features and programmability of scripting languages like Python or Ruby.
Some key features of Elvish include:
- Expressive pipeline syntax for composability and readability
- Rich data types like lists, maps, tuples built into the language
- Structured data and semantic highlighting for productivity
- Friendly interactive features like completions and hints
- Powerful Unix capabilities like wildcards, redirections, virtualenv support
- Easy scriptability with functions, exceptions, namespaces and more
By combining an interactive shell with a powerful scripting language, Elvish allows both interactive exploration and automation of tasks. It can be used for daily system administration, DevOps pipelines, batch data processing and more. Its clean, expressive syntax also makes Elvish scripts easy to read and maintain.
Elvish runs on most Linux and UNIX-based systems like FreeBSD and macOS. It aims to be a friendly, open and community-driven project for modern shell scripting and task automation.
PowerShell, Zsh, KornShell, win-bash, GNU Bourne Again SHell, Nu Shell, DASH Shell, the xonsh shell, Ergonomica, rc - a shell, fshell, Xiki, OverOS, eltclsh are some alternatives to Elvish.