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Comment by nonsince | Hacker News Reader

I really like that you have to use `env` in fish, since it's cross-shell - it works in bash/zsh/dash/whatever. The `A=b foo` syntax is an unnecessary appendix in the syntax that complicates matters while only saving 4 characters.

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It's not just to save typing - having an `A=b foo` form built-in instead of relying on an external program means `foo` can be an alias or shell function.

I agree and think the best fix would be if the syntax would be forbidden in bash/zsh. Problem is: Millions of code snippets on the Internet not using env.

For one-liners, typing `env ` before pasting is likely not too much work. For longer scripts, you'd have to rewrite much of the text anyway.

often there's stuff like

    cd build && LD_LIBRARY_PATH=../lib ./foo

It's no dealbreaker though, I still use fish and love it :) Just a minor annoyance ;)

That syntax is from very early days of sh itself (predecessor of bash), IIRC. So removing it would break many scripts, as sibling comment by jhasse said.

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