It's true that this can be a pain; but this flexibility is also bash's greatest feature: a bash script can make use of almost any other program, regardless of t

It's true that this can be a pain; but this flexibility is also bash's greatest feature: a bash script can make use of almost any other program, regardless of the particular idioms that that program's author was partial too. This is exactly why bash has been so successful for so long and likely will continue to be so for a very long time. Any attempts to tighten this down would raise the barrier for entry and therefore reduce the ecosystem that bash can operate in. Also, it's a bit of a false dichotomy. Any other language is also susceptible to these sorts of inconsistencies. For example: Do I specify a range as [min, max] or as two separate parameters? Is it inclusive or exclusive? etc. At some point all programming interfaces come down to conventions, and if your language only supports one then you'll only be able to interop with the subset of the broader community that agrees with you.