kentfredric/gist:1335445

## gistfile1.txt
A while ago on twitter somebody asked to the effect of "Why is it people still
don't use Zsh" and somebody repsonded something to the effect of "I guess
they've just never tried it".

So I made a mental note to re-try Zsh ( as I had in the past and forgot why I
stopped ) at some stage and report my findings, in the hope it can be
constructive criticism and make Zsh a better product.

1. Fire up Zsh, I get a configuration wizard.

This is for me, a "Good thing", ... at least, so I thought. "Hey, I have no clue
what I'm doing, explain what I need to do" sounded great to me.  However, I
quickly found myself reading lots of documentation that bore little to no
meaning to me, a lot of the descriptions for things in the realm of "completion"
is simply "ummm, what?", they may have as well been talking about the specific
cultures of bikini bottom in Sponge Bob square pants.

So I quickly just backed the hell away and opted for more "sane" defaults ....

Or so I thought.

2. Configuration Wizard drops me to a shell.

And It inherits my $PS1 from Bash ... and that goes down like a house on fire.

When you're previously used to seeing "kent@ember: ~" and then you suddenly get
greeted with "\[\033[01;31m\]$(__git_ps1 "[] ")\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\H:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\n> \[\033[00m\]" ,
the initial reaction is "Back the hell away, whatever this foreign demon is,
it is either broken as hell or I don't want it.

Normally, I would just "exit" and then go back to using bash. << Lost User.

So I fired up 'man zsh', which proved to be unhelpful, so I followed a few links
on that man page ( some of which were no longer valid ). My first hit was the
"FAQ" from the man page ( http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/ ) , because I figured "holy
cow, I haven't even done anything and its already horrifying, this has to be a
pretty frequently asked question right?"  .... Nope. Not that I can see.

And then theres "The ZSH web page" www.zsh.org , also completely useless.

Third link "The ZSH User Guide"  http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/ has one
section on "making that shit go away" as far as I can make out, with vauge
references to $PS1 and little else.  I mean seriously, what the fuck is it
talking about here: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide02.html#l19

So about on the 4th site, I finally find something useful here that Just Works.

http://zshwiki.org/home/config/prompt

^^ why the hell couldn't this have been more forward facing? No idea.

3. Delete doesn't work as I expect it to. At all.

Backspace works.

Back arrow works.

Delete.... What the fuck? Converts characters between where the cursor is
presently and the end of the line to upper case ( or lower case, it flips the
case ). What the hell planet does that make sense on?

I still don't know what is causing that, and I'm buggered if I even have the
first clue how to get zsh to be "usable for things I do all the time", so until
this problem is resolved, I'm back to using bash.

These things ^^^ really shouldn't be happening fresh off the block. Maybe I'm
just a complete idiot or something, maybe there is weirdness in my bash that has
been fine for bash but zsh throws a hissy fit at. Either way, that wizzard thing
needs an option for my kind of people with "I'm an idiot whos' used to bash, try
make my life easier? kthx?"

My .zshrc is as follows:
# Lines configured by zsh-newuser-install
HISTFILE=~/.histfile
HISTSIZE=4000
SAVEHIST=40000
setopt appendhistory autocd extendedglob
# End of lines configured by zsh-newuser-install The following lines were added
# by compinstall
zstyle :compinstall filename '/home/kent/.zshrc'

autoload -Uz compinit compinit
# End of lines added by compinstall

autoload -U promptinit && promptinit prompt gentoo

I'm using: zsh 4.3.12 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

my $TERM  is rxvt-unicode-256color

I'm willing to give feedback as to anything else that may be happening.

Though I strongly recommend that any solution that has "read the manual" or
"read the wiki" as the first response to be seriously thought about. These
limitations prevent me even *using* zsh to try it, let alone use it long enough
to care about it.
	A while ago on twitter somebody asked to the effect of "Why is it people still
	don't use Zsh" and somebody repsonded something to the effect of "I guess
	they've just never tried it".

	So I made a mental note to re-try Zsh ( as I had in the past and forgot why I
	stopped ) at some stage and report my findings, in the hope it can be
	constructive criticism and make Zsh a better product.

	1. Fire up Zsh, I get a configuration wizard.

	This is for me, a "Good thing", ... at least, so I thought. "Hey, I have no clue
	what I'm doing, explain what I need to do" sounded great to me. However, I
	quickly found myself reading lots of documentation that bore little to no
	meaning to me, a lot of the descriptions for things in the realm of "completion"
	is simply "ummm, what?", they may have as well been talking about the specific
	cultures of bikini bottom in Sponge Bob square pants.

	So I quickly just backed the hell away and opted for more "sane" defaults ....

	Or so I thought.

	2. Configuration Wizard drops me to a shell.

	And It inherits my $PS1 from Bash ... and that goes down like a house on fire.

	When you're previously used to seeing "kent@ember: ~" and then you suddenly get
	greeted with "\[\033[01;31m\]$(__git_ps1 "[] ")\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\H:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\n> \[\033[00m\]" ,
	the initial reaction is "Back the hell away, whatever this foreign demon is,
	it is either broken as hell or I don't want it.

	Normally, I would just "exit" and then go back to using bash. << Lost User.

	So I fired up 'man zsh', which proved to be unhelpful, so I followed a few links
	on that man page ( some of which were no longer valid ). My first hit was the
	"FAQ" from the man page ( http://www.zsh.org/FAQ/ ) , because I figured "holy
	cow, I haven't even done anything and its already horrifying, this has to be a
	pretty frequently asked question right?" .... Nope. Not that I can see.

	And then theres "The ZSH web page" www.zsh.org , also completely useless.

	Third link "The ZSH User Guide" http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/ has one
	section on "making that shit go away" as far as I can make out, with vauge
	references to $PS1 and little else. I mean seriously, what the fuck is it
	talking about here: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide02.html#l19

	So about on the 4th site, I finally find something useful here that Just Works.

	http://zshwiki.org/home/config/prompt

	^^ why the hell couldn't this have been more forward facing? No idea.

	3. Delete doesn't work as I expect it to. At all.

	Backspace works.

	Back arrow works.

	Delete.... What the fuck? Converts characters between where the cursor is
	presently and the end of the line to upper case ( or lower case, it flips the
	case ). What the hell planet does that make sense on?

	I still don't know what is causing that, and I'm buggered if I even have the
	first clue how to get zsh to be "usable for things I do all the time", so until
	this problem is resolved, I'm back to using bash.

	These things ^^^ really shouldn't be happening fresh off the block. Maybe I'm
	just a complete idiot or something, maybe there is weirdness in my bash that has
	been fine for bash but zsh throws a hissy fit at. Either way, that wizzard thing
	needs an option for my kind of people with "I'm an idiot whos' used to bash, try
	make my life easier? kthx?"

	My .zshrc is as follows:
	# Lines configured by zsh-newuser-install
	HISTFILE=~/.histfile
	HISTSIZE=4000
	SAVEHIST=40000
	setopt appendhistory autocd extendedglob
	# End of lines configured by zsh-newuser-install The following lines were added
	# by compinstall
	zstyle :compinstall filename '/home/kent/.zshrc'

	autoload -Uz compinit compinit
	# End of lines added by compinstall

	autoload -U promptinit && promptinit prompt gentoo

	I'm using: zsh 4.3.12 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

	my $TERM is rxvt-unicode-256color

	I'm willing to give feedback as to anything else that may be happening.

	Though I strongly recommend that any solution that has "read the manual" or
	"read the wiki" as the first response to be seriously thought about. These
	limitations prevent me even using zsh to try it, let alone use it long enough
	to care about it.