Why I love zsh (and hate being forced to use bash)

Smarter completion:
cd tab completion -- directories only
bash can do this, but needs the bash-completion package, usually comes separately
zsh always comes with completions, why doesn't bash?
Filename correction during completion
if dir1/x exists and dir2 exists, then "dir/x<TAB>" completes to dir1/x
if name1 is a file and name2 is a directory with files in it, "name/<TAB>" completes to "name2/"
Better ctrl-R behaviour
alerts you if your ctrl-R is failing
completes it right on the prompt line while showing you what you're searching for below
ctrl-R, enter a search term, ctrl-R repeatedly to see earlier matches, then hit backspace
bash deletes characters in your search term
zsh backtracks through the matches you rejected with ctrl-R, i.e. "backspaces" your ctrl-R's
autopushd option -- every "cd" is implicitly a silent "pushd" so you can "popd" to go back any time
better popd behaviour if a directory no longer exists
zsh will still pop the stack, so subsequent popd's work
bash refuses to popd
incremental history saving option
saves after every command
my .zsh_history is chronological and always up-to-date, even with multiple shells running
in any shell, I can "fc -R ~/.zsh_history" to reload in order to reuse the latest commands
optional coloured completion (like "ls")
autocd option -- "executing" a directory will "cd" to it instead
e.g. if I start typing /some/dir/file and decide I want to switch to /some/dir instead, I just enter "/some/dir"
`some-command`<TAB> -- expand output of some-command right in your shell line
can automatically show exit status of last command
always know when something failed, even if the output doesn't make it obvious
can automatically show "time" output if a command takes more than <n> seconds
usually has the latest UI improvements first
most of bash's features originally came from zsh
probably a lot more that I've forgotten

rinaldifonseca/gist:1974802

Why I love zsh (and hate being forced to use bash)