Bash is used as a programming language. And it's an objectively awful programming language. Sh is even worse. Korn isn't installed absolutely everywhere like

Bash is used as a programming language. And it's an objectively awful programming language. Sh is even worse. Korn isn't installed absolutely everywhere like Sh is. It's not even installed in 1/100 of the locations that Bash is installed. So it being better is irrelevant to the discussion of Bash as a programming language. Because Bash is so awful, the only real justification for using it as a programming language is that it's already installed. Since Korn isn't already installed, that means you'd need to install it. If you're going to be installing something, there are far better choices. So your comment doesn't at all contribute to the discussion of alternatives to using Bash as a programming language. And the verbosity of using Java to list a folder contents is equally irrelevant. No one would argue that Java is better ... for listing directory contents. If you do want to write a script that calls a bunch of shell commands, or even that operates on folders and files, there are far better languages and tools. See, for example, https://www.npmjs.com/package/tish https://www.npmjs.com/package/tish Or just Node/TypeScript in general.