In short, Amber is a programming language with Rust like syntax that compiles down to bash. More details here: https://amber-lang.com/
On the surface, it seems nice. Cleaner syntax, types, compile-time safety checks, etc. So you get to write in something nicer than bash but get the portability of bash.
My wonder is if there are pitfalls that make it worse than instead writing it in something like Python or even bash itself. I'd guess the generated bash code probably isn't the prettiest to look at or debug.
24 Comments
balsoft@lemmy.ml · 25 pts · 26d
At the risk of stating the obvious, I would like everyone to know that https://www.shellcheck.net/ exists. Unless you are a bash wizard: if your bash script doesn't pass shellcheck, it is very likely to have bugs.
tasankovasara@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 20d
Let's also remind that at least Helix the very good editor automatically runs bash stuff through Shellcheck if you have it installed, while you type. It's been amazingly useful and educational. I write a lot of bash at work and have learned many finer details from Shellcheck's hints.
It even does the Clippy thing. I'm piping something into a sed s/.../... and it tips 'try ${variable//search/replace} instead'.
CameronDev@programming.dev · 23 pts · 26d
If your comfortable writing rust, why not just use rust and compile to rust binaries? Rust has toolchains for realistically everything...
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club · 21 pts · 26d
It's not Rust, OP was mistaken. It's ECMA-Script-like with Rust-like features and also Python-like features.
I think the idea is, you can develop Amber scripts "at home" then deploy them on any machine that has Bash without needing to install anything. This benefits system admins.
Well, their FAQ isn't exactly production ready.
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 26d
Unless OP edited their post, they said "Rust like", not that it is Rust.
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club · 5 pts · 26d
Yeah, it's a blurry line whether to call it rust-like if it borrows features, when actually most syntax is more like ECMA Script or Python. So I shouldn't really have said "OP was wrong". But they also kind of are. I dunno.
False@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 26d
Eh, go is really good for this kind of stuff. It compiles to a single binary you can just execute from shell
CameronDev@programming.dev · 2 pts · 26d
Rust is the same mostly. One upside of bash is that if binary signing was enabled, go and rust binaries would get blocked, but bash would be fine.
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 26d
Doesn't that describe most languages?
False@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 26d
I'd say no. Even C needs external libraries.
I guess Rust does this too though - in which case transpiling rust to bash is even less appealing :shrug:
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 26d
You can compile a C program while statically linking the libraries, thereby producing a single binary with no runtime dependencies. Just because Go can do this, too, doesn't mean it's special. It's just that most libraries for Go ship as source code and not as compiled libraries. But as soon as you import some actual library like Sqlite, OpenSSL, GTK or whatever, using some wrapper code, you're going to have the same dependency issue.
mmmm@sopuli.xyz · 19 pts · 26d
I wonder why they decided to make it transpile to bash instead of posix sh.
IanTwenty@piefed.social · 13 pts · 26d
I like the idea as BASH is available everywhere but has terrible gotchas in its syntax plus at times is unreadable.
When I did some moderately complicated amber scripts I hit bugs. Also still some important features are missing.
So I'm keeping an eye on it but it's definately not ready for anything serious yet.
I am also watching https://oils.pub/ and hoping one or both of these projects succeed.
False@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 26d
I think you may as well write your script in rust, if that's what you want to do, and just have it call shell commands then parse the output in rust.
I've done this in Python before, works fine.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 26d
Bash syntax sucks but imo rust syntax is 50 times worse. Interesting idea though.
ferric_carcinization@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 26d
What do you dislike about Rust's syntax?
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 26d
I just didn't like it. I did a tutorial years ago and it all felt unnatural and hard to read/write.
airgapped@piefed.social · 3 pts · 26d
Likewise, the constant finger dancing between various symbols gave me RSI and was a readability nightmare. Shame because I liked Rust as a language.
ferric_carcinization@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 26d
Fair enough, I guess. I too find the syntax of some languages to be a bit unergonomic. Though, I could probably get used to them, given enough time.
I was just a bit curious, as Rust's syntax is not nearly as exotic compared to its signature features.
Sandouq_Dyatha@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 26d
@AMBER_BOT@hexbear.net
jtrek@startrek.website · 3 pts · 26d
Interesting. I dislike writing bash scripts so this might appeal to me, but probably not before a stable 1.x release.
jokro@feddit.org · 2 pts · 26d
This is nice. Writing safe bash scripts includes avoiding implicit pitfalls. If the tool actively stops you from that it's great. I wished this would have existed some years back.
digdilem@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 25d
You'll never take perl from me!
liliumstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 25d
I have used it, and honestly it's better than writing pure bash. But it's not perfect. Still needs a lot of work, and there are a bunch of weird limitations and things you need to remember. So I would say it's main use case is where you absolutely need bash portability over a more robust scripting/programming language.