Talk:Shell (computing)

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[edit] Etymology

What would be really cool would be if someone found out why a Shell is called "shell". Does it have sth. to do with real ocean shells? I found nothing about that in the net yet.

--Darkstar

Because it's a "shell" over the operating system. Dysprosia 20:40, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

--Thomashauk

Its a nut annalogy. The shell of a nut is the bit you see. Inside is the kernel which is also the inside of a nut, the bit you eat. thomashauk 19:45, 18 Jun 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shell vs. Desktop environment

  • I'm slightly confused here: what's the difference between an operating system shell and a desktop environment? Is a shell a certain section of the D.E. that solely deals with management of files or are the words shell and D.E. synonyms? --67.70.21.13 05:17, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • This could be answered from a specific reading of both articles:
      • Desktop environment: a desktop environment (DE) offers a complete graphical user interface (GUI) solution to operate a computer.
      • Operating system shell: ircThe shell of an operating system is a program that presents an interface to various operating system functions and services.
    • So, while a DE provides a means of a GUI to the user, it need not concern itself with manipulating many aspects of the OS, while a shell is intended for this purpose. To answer your question; a shell and DE overlap, but I wouldn't say they were synonymous or had the same purpose. HTH Dysprosia 05:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Enlightenment about the "kernel"/"shell" dichotomy can also be found at kernel. Uncle G 12:14, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge with shell (computing)

I'm the initial author of shell (computing), and I disagree with the proposal by Falerin to merge that article into this one. This article is about operating system shells. Yet the term shell is used more generally in the realm of software applications. Operating system shells are just one of several types of shell. If anything, this article should be merged into that one. — mjb 16:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree that the term Shell is in fact used more generally in the realm of software applications. However the current article does not provide much in the way of giving clue to what this usage is, and even in the applications development environment such usage is rare and indeed looose as is suggested. However it is correct to state that more strictly this article is a subset of shell (computing) and in that sense I do not oppose a merge in that direction either. As it is however the later offers little to distinguish itself other then reference that it is used quite loosely in other forms. The operating system shell information if removed only to the point of providing a link would result in an article that is so short that it would neither provide a Wiktionary defintion nor additional description on disambiguation. Expanding the stub as it exists arround the differences without excessive redundancy would seem quite difficult if not impossible. Worse the current Shell disambiguation refers to a redirect and is otherwise confusing. When weighing options merge seemed the most reasonable alernative though I did not do it and redirect because there was more to be discussed. Falerin 06:38, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Shell (computing) clearly being more general than the specific genre of operating system shells. The IE Shell article in the Shell article is a good example of that. The general idea behind the naming "shell" is after all basically "an application that wraps another", where a CLI acts as a text-based wrapper for more or less selected OS features, and so on, while another shell may wrap an application not having anything to do with a direct OS communication. I've used an mp3 encoder GUI that acted as a shell for the command-line LAME encoder. Having this article as a section in the Shell article sounds good to me, as a start. Maybe one section for Operating system shells with subsections GUIs and CLIs, and another section for Application shells. That's my 2c on this. -- Jugalator 10:05, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Issues regarding scripting languages

I'm having trouble with considering scripting languages as CLI shells. It isn't so much an issue of whether they can be used as shells as whether they're intended to; if they are, we can also add Applescript, HyperTalk, REXX, Ruby, and a few others (Awk? TECO? Emacs?) to the list, and I don't feel that any of them really belong there (although it is possible, if a bit cumbersome, to use Applescript as a command line environment for MacOS Classic, and I presume REXX and Ruby can be used interactively as well). You could also include machine language monitors and debuggers like MacsBug in the definition, in which case you'd be diluting it beyond reasonable usefulness.

As for the issue about generalizing the definition of "shell", I think "shell" is pretty well-established as a special case of "wrapper", not a synonym; it specifically implies an interactive program, with scriptability being secondary to the definition. 141.154.59.77 00:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Sorry, not logged in... Haikupoet 00:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shells etc

A shell is meant to be a wrapper around some underlying system. It is pretty much what is being wrapped.
For example, something like XTREE, Midnight commander, FC/2 etc are wrappers around file management in different systems, and are often called shells. However, one would not set something like COMSPEC=C:\XTREE\XTG.COM, because XTree requires an underlying command processor to do the work.
Something like diskpart.exe or ftp.exe is an interactive program, that supports scripts, but is hardly a shell. These programs are not intended to launch programs, and are largely intended to do something that a stand-alone gui might do.
Scripting language, especially scripting glue (rexx, vba), provide a common scripting across different applications, and usually start external programs or commands as well. Yet such glue would hardly be a shell program.
On the other hand, the tandy 100 computer used MS-BASIC 3.21 as the shell. That is, it is the direct interface to the hardware. One might consider that BASIC, in its earliest incarnations was really both operating system and shell. Command.com is derived from basic.
Modern shells restart themselves by way of being their own parent. One sees this when command.com in DOS, or Windows explorer or OS/2 pmshell is stopped: the operating system restarts them. Viruses also restart, but this is usually because of parallel processes that restart each other. On the other hand, Windows 3.1 shells exit both themselves and the underlying APIs.

Wendy.krieger 11:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging Desktop shell replacement into this page

The following is material from that page's talk page, originally suggesting a rename for that page, and later suggesting that it be merged into this page. Continue discussion here. Guy Harris 18:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Since this is a Windows-specific phenomenon, instead of calling this articke "Desktop shell replacement," perhaps a more suitable title would be "Explorer shell replacement?" (Or "Explorer.exe shell replacement") —Tokek 11:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

How about Alternative shell - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 21:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Alternative shell doesn't address the issue. Alternative shell could refer to a unix command line shell, or any other user interface shell replacement. This article is specifically about replacing the windows shell, the part of the windows interface known as "explorer". -- JoshuaRodman (not logged in) 64.142.12.203 11:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
What about something like "Windows desktop environments", "Windows graphical shells", or "Windows desktop shells"? The article could mention the default shell provided with Windows and link to Windows Shell, then explain about alternative shells that can be used. I think that would be better than arbitrarily separating the default shell from "replacement" shells. Herorev 21:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
This looks like it duplicates information from Shell (computing). Therefore, I propose a merge. Any thoughts? -MarkKB 04:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, this should be either renamed to something like "Windows shell replacements" or merged into Shell (computing). I'm leaning towards a merge, but definitely, the current name is unsuitable. Nibios 06:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I stand on renaming: these articles bear different informational context, while "Desktop shell replacement" is just specific for Windows --ΑΜακυχα Θ 03:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
IMO the move is a good idea, see Talk:Desktop shell replacement, but not the merge. The issue with Windows is worthy of an article, rather than cluttering this one with the details. Andrewa (talk) 06:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Based on what I've read, the lack of discussion, and that the article in question was moved to Windows shell replacement, I'm going to remove the {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}} tags. I consider the issue closed. Gh5046 (talk) 07:02, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology

Seeing as the CLI came before the GUI shouldn't CLI's be listed in this article first? I'll change it around later if someone else doesn't. Gh5046 15:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and just switched the two. Perhaps like the article the history of the graphical user interface there can be an article for the history of the command line interface. Gh5046 15:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)