Rc shell
Ranked 11 of 12 shells by recommenders
Plan 9 shell that people recommend for cleaner syntax than Bourne-style shells, simpler scripting with functions instead of aliases, and good editing features. It is free.
Plan 9 shell that people recommend for cleaner syntax than Bourne-style shells, simpler scripting with functions instead of aliases, and good editing features. It is free.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Cleaner syntax than Bourne-style shells
“avoids semicolons that Bourne requires in odd places, and the syntax characters better set off the active parts of the command”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “The Case for Nushell (2023)” “Plan9's rc(1) it's much saner than Bash, Ksh and PowerShell.”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “I wrote an bash enumerator because I was sick of xargs” “Plan 9 rc was nicer even before POSIX even really got going”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Ion: Modern System Shell in Rust” Quick to learn for scripting
“Understanding 16 pages of Duff's rc manual was enough for me to start writing scripts faster than I did in bash.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Go's Sweet 16” “Here's rc. No aliases there, just functions.”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Cocoa-Way – Native macOS Wayland compositor for running Linux apps seamlessly” Good editing and REPL features
“You get a shell not bound to sizes. Scripts run in the same way, but with superior editing capabilities.”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Terminals should generate the 256-color palette” “you get the rc shell and a few more languages with a REPL”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Terminals should generate the 256-color palette”
Other shells people recommend
The four most recommended other shells, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bash | 171 | 127 | 57% | 12 | 20 yrs7 owners | — |
| PowerShell | 156 | 92 | 63% | 12 | — | — |
| fish shell | 97 | 20 | 83% | 12 | 5 yrs11 owners | Approved |
| Nushell | 92 | 15 | 86% | 11 | 1.7 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| Rc shellThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Plan9's rc(1) it's much saner than Bash, Ksh and PowerShell.”
“it lets you borrow by default and only clone when you actually mutate”
“Here's rc. No aliases there, just functions.”
“I solve this problem by using a shell that doesn't do that”
“but it's far from stabilized”
“You get a shell not bound to sizes. Scripts run in the same way, but with superior editing capabilities.”
“you get the rc shell and a few more languages with a REPL”
“avoids semicolons that Bourne requires in odd places, and the syntax characters better set off the active parts of the command”
“Plan 9 rc was nicer even before POSIX even really got going”
“Understanding 16 pages of Duff's rc manual was enough for me to start writing scripts faster than I did in bash.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.