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:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)