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Here is a serious question I've been wondering about for a while: Is there any real compelling need for shells to support both a CLI (Command Line Interface) a

Here is a serious question I've been wondering about for a while: Is there any real compelling need for shells to support both a CLI (Command Line Interface) and a scripting language? As (I assume) most shell scripting languages support #! as the first line of their scripts, why not develop a pure CLI that has no native scripting language? Edit: to be clear I'm not suggesting the OP (Original Poster) do this, but rather that they need not feel they also need to develop a CLI as well.

ilyash 9y ago
Here are my thoughts: You start with a simple CLI, then you figure out you can't do much without variables, ifs and basic loops. At this point you have a language with ugly syntax and problematic semantics because it was never intended to be a language. Then you try add more features (because people a stretching the limits of what is done with the CLI) without breaking anything. This is hard and has even uglier syntax. Not mentioning names here :) CLI support is needed in NGS because in practice many scripts begin as few lines that you typed in and then copy+pasted to a file. I want to support this mode of work.