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>> need to know how to write safe shell programs >> once you do, shell is really, really useful and convenient Part of the issue here is that a large number o

>> need to know how to write safe shell programs >> once you do, shell is really, really useful and convenient Part of the issue here is that a large number of people who think they know how to write safe shell scripts do not in fact have the ability to do so. There are so many gotchas to learn that it's all too easy to believe oneself competent, while being unaware of just how short one's knowledge falls. It's just too easy to write a script in the shell of your choice that works - until it encounters an edge case scenario that wasn't planned for, at which point the results can be catastrophic. This is true of any programming language, but the tasks for which people write shell scripts (such as massive system-wide filesystem manipulation) makes the consequences of a single-line bug very real.

ams6110 9y ago
> This is true of any programming language Glad you mentioned that, because that was going to be my reply after reading the first half of your post. I'm not sure a person who is fairly well-versed in shell scripting is going to do a worse job than trying to use python, perl, lua, etc. if he doesn't also hsve a high level of experience and compentence in those languages. It has been literally 10 years since I touched Python. I use shell scripting every day. I know which one I'm going to be better at using to produce reliable code that does what I want it to do.
- JoBrad 9y ago
  > It has been literally 10 years since I touched Python That's fine. Python 2.6 is still in wide use.