tdenniston/bish

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_releases

Adoption not part of the score

1489 stars · 38 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Bish is a lightweight programming language with modern syntax that compiles down to Bash, making shell scripts more comfortable to write while staying portable. It is implemented in C++ with no dependencies beyond the standard library, and doubles as an educational example of writing a compiler from scratch.

Use cases

• write shell scripts with modern syntax instead of bash quirks
• compile a scripting language to bash for portability
• automate quick shell tasks without pulling in python or perl
• study a small compiler written from scratch in c++
• use pipes and io redirection as first-class language features

When to choose

• you want modern syntax for small shell scripts but need bash output
• you want a tiny dependency-free compiler toolchain
• you are learning how compilers work and want readable source

When to avoid

• you need a production-ready, actively maintained language
• you need features beyond basic scripting like robust error handling or libraries
• you target shells other than bash

Facets

cli-tool · maturity abandoned

compiler programming-language cli programming-languages compilers developer-tools cli cpp shell-scripting transpiler bash compiler-from-scratch educational command-line automation linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="tdenniston/bish")