Nothing is more beautiful than the Unix Shell. Your shell is how you interact with your system. It gets you from point A to point B as painless as possible. Anyone who has tried out multiple shells and picked the one they liked the best loves(hopefully:) their shell. On a Computer system, your shell is your car. It is what allows you to get around, much like your car is. And just like the Unix shell, everyone loves their car. Even if you have a greater chance of winning at roulette than starting your car, you still love it.
Many people have to walk. It is not their fault. You see, while their land[MacOS] looks very pretty and easy to hang out in, they are not capable of traveling fast. There are no roads at all there. Fortunately for these people there are some roads under construction, but very few people are actually using them. One very nice thing about this place is that you do not need to know anything about it to get around easily, all too often you have to spend a lot of time leaning about a place before you can move around easily. You may even have to buy expensive maps. In this place, if you want something, then you just point to it and it is yours. All in all: it is a nice place to visit, but I would not want to live there.
Some people do not care for technology much and live in outdated places with no real roads, just trails. They are forced to use means of travel like horses[command.com]. Some of those people have moved ahead and now use the stage coach[4dos.com]. Is it any wonder why these people don't like to travel much? Given such outdated means of travel, I would just assume stay at home. So that is what many of these people do, they sit at home looking out the Windows(tm), watching the world pass them by. The lack of technology in this land is not the fault of its inhabitants, however. There are Gates surrounding it which are closed to any advancements, better technology, or new ideas. It is my personal opinion that there are too many sheep hanging around this land who will do anything their herder tells them. They should move.
Luckily many of us use more sophisticated means of travel, because we are traveling on more sophisticated roads. There are people who don't need many accessories, but just want to get where they are going as fast and efficient as possible; they prefer motorcycles[sh]. Unfortunately not everyone can afford this highly commercial product and use mopeds[ash] instead. Both means of travel hug the road tightly and are very dependable and predictable, which is something you need in a vehicle.
Sometimes you find a person who has an old vintage car[csh]. They do not ever use it. While it looks flashy and has historic and economic value, if you tried to use it then it would just break down. In there time these cars were a good idea, but they just don't hold up to modern standards. When you are looking at a vehicle, you want dependability and usability.
There are also people out there who like those new sports cars[tcsh]. Again, this vehicle's looks and speed[interactive] do not make up for ending up in the auto shop if you really try to drive it[programming]. It is usually better to pick a vehicle which you can use in all aspects of your life. It is fun to drive down the road at 100MPH(160kM/hr), but what if you are out in the middle of nowhere and your car breaks down. Hopefully then you will learn your lesson, but I hope you are not really far from home because I know how hard it can be to recover from such a loss.
You may even find a person who drives a race car[ksh]. The problem here is that while there is no better car on the track[programming], it is not very practical to bring this car out onto the street[interactive]. Some people who are not on the professional circuit have to make their own race car[pdksh]. Although, the way the roads are built in Europe and other countries with a different set of signs[iso-1] it is much more practical, then in the United States with our set of signs[ansi]. I believe cars from 93 and 88 recognize this feature.
Many of us like a luxury car[bash]. It has every feature we need, and some we do not. The designers are users and they put everything exactly where it should go. Our car gets us where we want to go fast and safe. I love my car and would recommend it to just about anyone. Unfortunately the people who import cars into my land do not import this car so I had to smuggle it in. I hope they are not reading this, but if they are: why not try using this luxury car. I know they prefer sports cars, but if they would take the time to test drive a luxury car then I bet they would change their mind.
Many people are impressed with the new sport utility vehicles[zsh]. They open new paths to get to the same place while still keeping the old way open. They have so many new features though, it is often hard to get a handle on all of them. It can, however, be lots of fun trying. I am particularly happy with some of the features. I like where everything is placed, it is as if they looked at many different cars and imported the features which they found most interesting.
Some people like to keep everything they need to survive with them, they usually drive trailer homes and campers[kiss]. With this vehicle you can be prepared for anything if you are the ruler of the land and you make a mistake which results in no cars being able start[move libc] then, if you are driving this kind of camper, you have the tools with you to fix the problem. I know because one day I put on my crown and went for a drive and experienced this problem, this was one instance where I wish I wasn't in my luxury car. While my luxury car does have the tools to fix this problem, I was frustrated at myself at the time enough to remember where in my luxury car I had put those tools. So I am imparting this knowledge to you so before you go out to work on your roads, you may want to bring a camper along.
Now, some people are stuck in their ways. They have been driving their VW Bus[scsh] around for years and don't want to change. And, in actuality, why should they? The have found a pretty good car, which runs decently well. It has a small set of features[operators], but gets the job done fairly efficiently. It can also be extended to do some pretty crazy things. Of course, some people didn't buy the bus, they bought a VW Beetle[esh]. The important thing is that they are in about the same place. Now, a beetle is not as equiped as the bus, but it sure is faster. However, speed is not really that great of a concern with either of them.
A lot of the new age people are trying something different, they drive electric cars[rc]. Their strive for efficiency, practicality, and usability has put them in this new age of cars. These cars were originally built for special roads[plan9], but now they have been modified to run on most roads which are worth traveling. This new kind of car is more efficient and more reliable then even a motorcycle or a moped. Many of the lands ruled by the sports car driving people do not import this kind of car either.
Even this is not enough for some. They use solar powered cars[es] to push the cutting edge even more. One of the people who helped modify the electric car to run on more roads is in the forefront of development on this new bread of cars. They are starting from scratch in the design of this car and it is coming along very nicely. One notable problem is that this car works very much differently from the standard approach. It tends to be hard for such things to catch on because many people do not want to take the time to re-learn how to drive.
If Unix shells interest you, then why not check out this page, it is the shell FAQ, I hope you enjoy it. The following shells have been spoken of, but are not mentioned, i.e. don't have linkes to authors web sites, in the shell FAQ: kiss, scsh, and esh.
Copyleft: (C) 1996 1999, William Totten