History
The first Unix shell, Ken Thompson's sh, was modeled after the Multics shell, itself modeled after the RUNCOM program Louis Pouzin showed to the Multics Team. The 'rc' suffix on some Unix configuration files (e.g. ".vimrc"), is a remnant of the RUNCOM ancestry of Unix shells.
Practically all modern operating system shells can be used in both interactive and batch mode, the latter usually by specifying the name of a text file with commands listed therein. Batch mode use of shells usually involves structures, conditionals, variables, and other elements of programming languages; some have the bare essentials needed for such a purpose, others are very sophisticated programming languages in and of themselves. Conversely, some programming languages can be used interactively from an operating system shell or in a purpose-built programmer.
Read more about this topic: Shell (computing)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)