I will use any shell that descends from the original Bourne Shell, but if possible, I will not use that aged original Bourne Shell for only one reason - it lacks history and easy command navigation when used interactively. However, when programming, scripting, or otherwise using shells, I try, whenever possible, to adopt conventions and techniques that would also work in any Bourne compatible shell: sh5 (the UNIX System V Bourne Shell, not the original UNIX Version 6 shell), ksh, the Korn Shell, Bash, zsh, or pdksh.

These practices echo what Wes wrote about a few years ago, but since shells and aliases were recently mentioned in a Tech Republic mailing, I thought it would be worthwhile to mention these common best practices again.