Sorry for bumping this dormant thread, but I found scsh [1] really interesting (possibly even more so than rc(1)) in this aspect: written as a Scheme-embedded shell, it can make full use of the Scheme language, which is both elegant and expressive (unrivaled by any other programming language I know IMHO); using its syscall interfaces, chainloading would be fairly easy to implement.
[1] <https://scsh.net/about/about.html>. There are, inevitably, downsides: * As of its latest release (v0.6.7 from 2006), scsh does not have a good interactive mode. * scsh is, arguably, not very lightweight: > -rw-rw-r-- 1 portage portage 9.0M Sep 15 2016 bash-4.4.tar.gz > -rw-rw-r-- 1 portage portage 211K May 14 2015 rc-1.7.4.tar.gz > -rw-rw-r-- 1 portage portage 4.2M Aug 31 2006 scsh-0.6.7.tar.gz However, considering the power of scsh as a language ("scsh is a Scheme system designed for writing useful standalone Unix programs and shell scripts: it spans a wide range of application, from 'script' applications usually handled with perl or sh, to more standard system applications usually written in C" [2]), I think the size of its codebase is justified. [2] <https://scsh.net/docu/html/man-Z-H-2.html#node_chap_1>. On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 11:00:43PM +0800, Casper Ti. Vector wrote: > What do we need > --------------- > > Unfortunately, I am not a system programmer, and do not my current time > schedule allow me to spend enough time to systematically learn it; but I > think that a language that combines the advantages of shell and execline > is not only a concept, but also a feasible and rewarding goal, which is > worth a Unix programmer's efforts. Thus I really wish somebody that is > interested in process supervision and has the resource to try to realise > this concept, probably by incorporating execline utilities into rc(1). -- My current OpenPGP key: RSA4096/0x227E8CAAB7AA186C (expires: 2020.10.19) 7077 7781 B859 5166 AE07 0286 227E 8CAA B7AA 186C