Query on shells

[Gregg Wonderly]

	Here at OSU, a small number of people have become interested in shells.
We have put together a shell that uses a small subset of VI as a front end.
There are many features that are present that were derived from CSH and SH.
We are interested in comments as to what features of these and other shells
(KSH, VSH, etc) that you as programmers/users deem beneficial.  Also of 
interest, would be ideas of things not present in the shell(s) that you 
have used that you have needed on occasion.  The shell we have developed 
so far, does not support a language in the sense that SH, CSH, and others do.  
Our main interest here, is to provide a working environment, whereby a 
programmer, or a user involved in heavy interaction with the system, can be 
more productive.  Things to consider stem from the available resources.
Memory requirements, system resources (I/O, and computer execution times),
as well as external hardware (terminals, network requirements, and maintenance
on such things), are all non-common variables.  The flavor of UN*X running
is the biggest problem.  Some have certain features (SIGSTOP, SIGCHLD, 
FIONREAD, etc...) that are not available on older flavors.  These features
provide means for easily implementing certain things.  Some features/bugs have 
disappeared in later flavors.  These are just some of the things that have 
been thrown around here.

	Any ideas, big or small, that you have are welcome.  Please reply by direct 
mail if possible.


Gregg Wonderly
Department of Computing and Information Sciences
Oklahoma State University

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