In my daily bioinformatics work, I use Z Shell or zsh. Z shell was
derived from Bash and shares many features (and is largely compatable
with Bash). If you're interested in learning more about Z shell, visit
its homepage at http://zsh.sourceforge.net/.
Like most text editors and shells, you'll get the best experience in the long run if you customize Z shell to your liking. I use a framework for configuring Z shell called oh-my-zsh which makes this much easier. Oh-my-zsh includes community-contributed plugins for working with Git, OS X, and other programs, as well as numerous themes.
- cat-v.org has the full McIlroy quote about pipes.
- The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System
A great quote from Victor Vyssotsky, from this stellar Bell AT&T Labs video on Unix, featuring Thompson, Kernighan, Ritchie:
What's important about the Unix system is not so much what Ritchie and Thompson put into it, as what they were able to leave out of it. Rather than produce a large number of primitives, each one complex, they were able to choose a small number of simple primitives which could be fitted naturally together to accomplish complex tasks.