4 ms·
People love applying arcane knowledge like writing shells scripts to do things. The hard and complex way is fun.
by klysm 3y ago
People love applying arcane knowledge like writing shells scripts to do things. The hard and complex way is fun.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- robertlagrant 3y agoIs that really it? I use systemd at work and still have plenty of scripts to write getting my Debian packages to configure themselves correctly :)
- klysm 3y agoI think it’s definitely a contributing factor. Folks conflate simplicity with familiarity. It also just feels good to apply knowledge you worked hard to gain.
- tarxvf 3y agoWait, shell scripts are "arcane"?
- Sharlin 3y agoThey definitely are.
- klysm 3y agoAbsolutely. Anything like bash is not a good language IMO.
- dooglius 3y ago"arcane" is not at all the same thing as "not good", anyone who uses a command line is writing bash
- kelnos 3y ago"Arcane" means "requiring secret or mysterious knowledge". I think there are quite a few features of bash that qualify as arcane. I've been writing shell scripts for decades and I still have to look up how to do certain things often enough. And if you want to write in portable shell, remembering all the rules and things you can and cannot do feels somewhat arcane to me.
- klysm 3y agoSure, but they aren't really writing what I would consider a script/program under typical usage. Obviously that's a fuzzy definition if you start piping things together, but I'm talking more about control flow / parsing argument / etc. Doing that in bash correctly does require arcane knowledge and skills. It is immensely difficult to not shoot yourself in the foot.
- nesarkvechnep 3y agoEverything besides YAML is arcane these days.
- npteljes 3y agoFor sure. It's decades of legacy, many different versions, footguns and caveats everywhere. I personally like to tinker with it, but I also have to look up basic things like "how to write a for loop" or "how to compare numbers" constantly.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DEADMINCE 3y agoThat doesn't mean shell scripts are arcane, it just means you don't write shell scripts often enough.
- npteljes 3y agoI think it's both.
- DEADMINCE 3y agoIt's not. Shell scripts are still very much actively used and developed.
- klysm 3y agoThat doesn’t make them not arcane
- DEADMINCE 3y agoYes, it does. By definition.
- npteljes 3y agoHere is the usage of arcane that I think is apt when talking about shell scripting: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/arcane https://www.dictionary.com/browse/arcane " known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric " And as an example for something arcane, the Sanskrit language is brought up. I think this is a perfect example to compare with shell scripting. Sanskrit is from an era where it was more common, but nowadays it's usage is more of a specialty. The rules are understood and public, easily accessible technically, but it's hard work to get good at it. Since it has a long history, it has many variants, both over time, and depending on locality. There is a kind of common form of it that people can use for everyday matters, that is much easier than knowing all of the rules and cases. I think it's a good argument that shell scripting is arcane, even by investigating the definition of it. Not to mention that in the original post, it was just postulated that shell scripting is a bit weird, and maybe not the best tool for the job, a kind of a lighthearted jab at the language, and at the practices people sometimes do.