Why and How I Switched Back to Nushell from Zsh

2025-07-01 · Ryan X. Charles

I switched back to Nushell because I have solved the problems I previously wrote about.

The problems were:

  • Python didn’t work with uv.
  • It was too hard to figure out how to do things that are easy to look up in zsh.

However, I have solved both of these problems:

  • Python actually does work with uv. I simply assumed wrongly! When creating a new uv venv environment, the source script is at .venv/bin/activate.nu. Nu is supported by default!
  • By integrating AI into my editor and shell, I can look things up so easily that I no longer have a problem adapting solutions from zsh to Nushell.

Furthermore, I’m happy to hint that I’m building two new tools primarily designed for use in Nushell:

  • Nutorch: A machine learning library for doing GPU-powered data analysis on the command line (in Nushell, powered by libtorch).
  • Termplot: Beautiful plots in your terminal, powered by web technologies including plotly.js and puppeteer.

I will share more information about the new tools soon, but for now, I wanted to clear the record since my previous blog post about switching back to zsh is now outdated!


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