The primitives that shell scripts operate on are files, file names, executables (subset of files and file names) and starting and stopping processes. In any san

The primitives that shell scripts operate on are files, file names, executables (subset of files and file names) and starting and stopping processes. In any sane OS, shell scripts do process input, output management, and maybe link processes together via some IPC. The need for some string handling falls out of this. I think most of these "let's replace bash with something BETTER!" articles miss these big points. Bash does the process management, and I/O management very well. That's the bar a replacement would have to clear.