So what is Monad?

Monad is the codename for Microsoft's new command line shell, Microsoft Shell: MSH.

I had the chance to download the MSH beta 1 by reading the instructions here.

MSH is an interesting thing. It is a different kind of shell, and quite unlike CMD.EXE (the normal command line shell for Windows). Yes, both process input and display output on the screen, but unlike CMD, MSH is not file-based. Instead, MSH is based on .NET objects. It passes these objects around.

I think this is an interesting concept. However, it takes time to get adjusted to this way of thinking, and at this point MSH is still quite arcane to use. For example, and easy way to load different assemblies (.DLLs) is missing.

If you are interested in the language that MSH uses, check out Arul Kumaravel's post. The syntax is something like C with bits from Perl combined.