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I mean I'd agree that's a good candidate for replacement; once you start doing anything more complicated than maybe idempotent curls to an external service I th

I mean I'd agree that's a good candidate for replacement; once you start doing anything more complicated than maybe idempotent curls to an external service I think it ceases to be a 'shell script'. This may sound a little like "no true scotsman" I guess, but "what is the scotsman" is kind of the key issue that I'm saying gets glossed over when people say blanket things like "never write shell, always use python."

dragonwriter 6y ago
I’m not sure I’d agree with defining the scope of things for which an actual shell language is ideal as inherently “shell scripts” (for a few reasons, including the evolving variety of shell languages, the fuzzy boundaries of that set, etc.), I think that it is probably the case that the choice between bash (or powershell or any other shell language) and Python isn’s as simple as “always use Python” and that there is plenty of space for discussion around which tasks each is appropriate for, with the answer differing based on which shell languages you are looking at.
- stormbrew 6y ago
  This (and a loooong history of similar posts) is the post that I was originally responding to: > Seriously, if you can avoid it, just don't write shell scripts at all. Use a real programming language instead. This may be slightly weaker than "never use shell" or "always use python" but it's pretty close to the former (you can almost always "avoid" using shell somehow), and people seem to believe that python is somehow particularly uniquely suited to use for shell tasks that I think there's some degree of the latter implied. So... I agree with you? I am saying that there is room for discussion around what constitutes a good use of shell script, and that there is a space in which that is true. I'm suggesting that a lot of people who believe otherwise may just mostly be writing things that aren't in that space, and I think this is actually a pretty charitable argument tbh.

dragonwriter 6y ago

I’m not sure I’d agree with defining the scope of things for which an actual shell language is ideal as inherently “shell scripts” (for a few reasons, including the evolving variety of shell languages, the fuzzy boundaries of that set, etc.), I think that it is probably the case that the choice between bash (or powershell or any other shell language) and Python isn’s as simple as “always use Python” and that there is plenty of space for discussion around which tasks each is appropriate for, with the answer differing based on which shell languages you are looking at.

stormbrew 6y ago
This (and a loooong history of similar posts) is the post that I was originally responding to: > Seriously, if you can avoid it, just don't write shell scripts at all. Use a real programming language instead. This may be slightly weaker than "never use shell" or "always use python" but it's pretty close to the former (you can almost always "avoid" using shell somehow), and people seem to believe that python is somehow particularly uniquely suited to use for shell tasks that I think there's some degree of the latter implied. So... I agree with you? I am saying that there is room for discussion around what constitutes a good use of shell script, and that there is a space in which that is true. I'm suggesting that a lot of people who believe otherwise may just mostly be writing things that aren't in that space, and I think this is actually a pretty charitable argument tbh.