On Sun, Aug 4, 2019 at 4:18 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:

> Part of the problem is having the kernel involved in starting shell
> scripts; convenient in some ways, but V6 etc worked fine without that
> 'feature'.
>
That's a tough call.  I have mixed opinions about it as a feature.  I kind
of like the user/kernel interface really, really thin and unadorned.

Adding, it certainly made allowing multiple interpreters to be supported
much easier; but as you say it opens a new can of worms.   Given the later
proliferation of what bwk or Jon Bently once referred too as 'little
languages' (awk, perl, tcl, and sigh eventually python), it was probably a
good feature.

But as you said, v6 worked fairly well without it.

Clem