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:
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)