The shell is both a command language and a programming language that provides an interface to the UNIX operating system (Bourne, 1978).
The shell is the part of the operating system that the user interacts with, and is arguably the most important part of the operating system. Files can be created, renamed, moved and read from the shell. Computer hardware can be installed, used and removed through the shells. Program applications and scripting can be written, compiled, and ran through the shell.
There are several shell programs for Unix, not just one. That in itself is an advantage.
The shell environment can be customized, scripted (programmed), and extended very easily. If you don't like the way it is doing something it is fairly easy to change the behavior.
The shell is the interface between the user and the operating system. Without it a user could not do anything on the system.
Shell programming allows a user to extend, modify, etc., the behavior of the environment through the shell. In essence, it allows the user to add features and behaviors of their environment.
Shell programming also allows users to dynamically activate tasks in an attended or unattended mode, such as running production jobs at periodic intervals.
Because that is what "shell programming" is - writing programs for a Unix shell. No Unix, no shell.
The mini shell program is used in Unix as a programming software. It is a redirected and streamlined approach at creating variables, commands, and tokens.
interactive interpreter more like a "shell" (if you're a unix person).
API [Application Programming Interface]
There is no "default" Unix shell. Different Unix vendors shipped different shells.
Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment was created in 1992.
KSH is an abbreviation for korn shell. Korn shell is a command interpreter for the Unix programming language. It was written in 1983 by David Korn at Bell Labs.
UNIX was programmed in C.
Unix was created first. The C programming language was created for Unix.
A Unix shell can be obtained in Cygwin, a Unix compatibility layer used to compile Unix programs and run them on Windows. Microsoft also makes a shell known as "Windows PowerShell" which incorporates more Unix-like features than the standard command prompt.
The first shell was 'sh', the Bourne Shell
The a default Unix shell is the shell that comes with and is activated initially with your distribution of Unix. The shell is essentially the program the runs the command line interface allowing someone to interact with their computer. Some examples are the Bourne-Again shell (bash) or the Bourne shell (sh).
The Korn shell.