[13] By contrast, Hamilton uses a top-down recursive descent parser that allows it to compile statements to an internal form before running them.

[6] The language has also been extended with built-in and user-defined procedures, local variables, floating point and additional expression, editing and wildcarding operators, including an "indefinite directory" wildcard construct written as "..." that matches zero or more directory levels as required to make the rest of the pattern match.

[14] Lacking fork or a high performance way to recreate that functionality, Hamilton uses the Windows threads facilities instead.

To recreate the missing isolation of separate processes, the threads cooperate to share resources using locks.

[15] Hamilton differs from other Unix shells in that it also directly supports Windows conventions for drive letters, filename slashes, escape characters, etc.