The POSIX shell is the standard tool to deploy, control, and maintain systems of all kinds; the shell is used on a sliding scale from one-o commands in an interactive mode all the way to complex scripts managing, e.g., system boot sequences. For all of its utility, the POSIX shell is feared and maligned as a programming language: the shell is feared because of its incredible power, where a single command can destroy not just local but also remote systems; the shell is maligned because its semantics are non-standard, using word expansion where other languages would use evaluation.

I conjecture that word expansion is in fact an essential piece of the POSIX shell’s interactivity; word expansion is well adapted to the shell’s use cases and contributes critically to the shell’s interactive feel.