This keeps showing up on the front page. No doubt it will have users. Lets say there are two uses of a shell: 1. interactive and 2. non-interactive (scripting

This keeps showing up on the front page. No doubt it will have users. Lets say there are two uses of a shell: 1. interactive and 2. non-interactive (scripting). Lets imagine the commandline user is learning about her OS. She learns it is heavily reliant on shell scripts to build and (if desired) to automate starting services. She realises that to understand the OS she will have to learn the shell that the OS developers used for scripting. Then she realises that if she chooses another shell for interactive use, she will have to learn two shells. Finally she realises that any script she writes in the "non-interactive/scripting" shell will also run under the interactive one. But not vice versa. If she only has enough time in life to master one shell, which one should she choose? Over time I found I really cared more about the scripting aspect of a shell than the interactive facet. The scripting shell used by the OS authors might be an Almquist derived shell, for instance. Occasionally the ash Im using gets a new "feature" but not too often. I like that it stays relatively small. The latest "feature" is LINENO. But I also use a smaller version of this shell with no command line history, no tabcomplete, etc. IMO, there is no better way to learn how to reduce keystrokes. It has led to some creativity in this regard for which I am thankful. After "mastering" ash, I started using execlineb, pipeline and fdmove. I am starting to use more components of execline and am continually replacing ash scripts with execline scripts for more and more daily work. I guess we will never see execline on the front page, which I think would be interesting because I would like to hear whatever harsh critique HN can muster. Seeking a better non-interactive/scripting experience, I have experimented with many other shells over the years, and written simple execve "program launchers", but in this vein, I have not found anything that compares to execline. The speed gains and resource conservation are obvious, but with the ability to do "Bernstein-chaining" and the option to use djb low-level functions instead of libc, it is a rare type of project. The speed and cleanliness of the compilation process is, compared to all the other crud one routinely encounters in open source projects, "a thing of beauty". Humble opinion only, but I think others might agree.