> The shell derives its power directly from the OS Indeed. After using it for quite some time without really thinking about it much, I've only relatively rece

> The shell derives its power directly from the OS Indeed. After using it for quite some time without really thinking about it much, I've only relatively recently come to the realization that the shell is, in many ways, simply a thin very UI layer wrapped around the kernel's syscall API, and I think the awesome utility of the shell speaks to the quality of the design of that API.