From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!esquire!nrh
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: blood curdling exec - (nf)
Article-I.D.: esquire.402
Posted: Tue Nov  2 02:05:00 1982
Received: Tue Nov  2 07:06:01 1982

#R:microsof:-255900:esquire:900005:000:762
esquire!nrh    Oct 31 13:14:00 1982

I just brought up a 4.1 BSD system, and kind of like the 
#! idea.  The question of where the interpreter gets invoked
is the issue.  In the old case, it had to be invoked explicitly, 
and the idea of "an executable" was something that could be
interpreted by the hardware.  The new setup shifts the meaning of
"an executable" to "a file executable either by hardware or by 
other software".

Since the shell is not the only way in which files can be executed
(did you ever try making someone's login shell be a command file?)
it seems unreasonable that the shell should bear the burden of 
doing all the work for setting up an interpreter (unless you 
feel that the shell should do all the work of finding memory, etc
for the binary executable to live in too).