Ask HN: Why is it called a shell?

#1

Post by david4096 » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 1:26 AM UTC

Would anyone like to offer how or why the command line interpreter came to be known as a shell?

Re: Ask HN: Why is it called a shell?

#2

Post by apples2apples » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 1:34 AM UTC

Came from Unix. A "shell to the kernel" that only exposed the outer layer.

#3

Post by david4096 » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 2:47 AM UTC

apples2apples wrote: post #2

Came from Unix. A "shell to the kernel" that only exposed the outer layer.

Have a source?

#4

Post by apples2apples » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 3:17 AM UTC

david4096 wrote: post #3

apples2apples wrote: post #2

Came from Unix. A "shell to the kernel" that only exposed the outer layer.

Have a source?

Not really, the internet points to this doc: http://www.multicians.org/shell.html Where Louis Pouzin of Multics claims to have coined it.

Looking around, this seems more interesting (implying it is a metaphorical name of a prophet's shell listening): http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/14934/why-was-the-wo...