Category talk:DOS Batch File

Rename the language

While the roots of this language lie with DOS (and CP/M before that) most of the programs featured on this site can't possibly work in DOS since they're using functionality introduced with cmd.exe in Windows NT. For that reason the name "DOS Batch File" is pretty misleading and should be changed. --Johannes Rössel

What should it be? --Mwn3d 18:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Windows Batch File might be an appropriate alternate name --Johannes Rössel 18:39, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Or just Batch File. After all, there are not many systems nowadays using that term. Similarly to how "shell scripts" generally refer to a UNIX-like CLI environment. —Johannes Rössel 18:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, depends if you're writing for 98-era COMMAND.COM or XP-era CMD.EXE, as the languages have a huge number of differences, rather like the difference between BCPL and C in scale though not detail. (I've done a fair bit with both types of batch file, but don't want to revive the experience. My windows systems now have bash installed…) Given that, someone needs to evaluate what language the existing examples are actually written in and work out what the renaming should be to. —Donal Fellows 21:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)