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Shell scripts can be used safely if you know how to. Have solid error handling, exit on error (set -e), write tests (BATS) and a few other things to make sure i

Shell scripts can be used safely if you know how to. Have solid error handling, exit on error (set -e), write tests (BATS) and a few other things to make sure it doesn't break. You are not gonna get the same performance with just or whatever new tooling there is just to run commands on your system

pdimitar 2y ago
> Shell scripts can be used safely if you know how to That's the contention point though -- I learned and relearned shell scripting no less than 7 separate times and it always slips away because it's not something I practice every day. Ultimately I concluded it's not worth it because you mostly have to memorize super weird syntax and strange exceptions to rules. At one point I was just like "screw this" and went for Golang. > You are not gonna get the same performance with just or whatever new tooling there is just to run commands on your system That's very debatable, I'd bet my Go programs process various things either faster or with the same speed. But even if they are slower that's often not important because most scripts I ever wrote were throwaway. Those that stuck around I have polished and re-polished, including with the measures you enumerated.
ricardobeat 2y ago
> if you know how to That’s a big if. I worked on a shell based tool for a couple years and eventually accumulated the know-how and toolset to write reliable code; but nobody else could contribute as the learning curve was too great. I switched to Ruby for all new tools and never looked back. Performance is rarely a concern in this territory, and you can always offload heavy work to another process.
nightowl_games 2y ago
Performance in your shell script is a new one. Can you cite a real world example where that would ever matter? My shell scripts just initiate build/export/deploy programs. They take milliseconds to run and then the programs they start take minutes. The perf of those milliseconds couldn't be more negligible.

pdimitar 2y ago

> Shell scripts can be used safely if you know how to That's the contention point though -- I learned and relearned shell scripting no less than 7 separate times and it always slips away because it's not something I practice every day. Ultimately I concluded it's not worth it because you mostly have to memorize super weird syntax and strange exceptions to rules. At one point I was just like "screw this" and went for Golang. > You are not gonna get the same performance with just or whatever new tooling there is just to run commands on your system That's very debatable, I'd bet my Go programs process various things either faster or with the same speed. But even if they are slower that's often not important because most scripts I ever wrote were throwaway. Those that stuck around I have polished and re-polished, including with the measures you enumerated.

ricardobeat 2y ago

> if you know how to That’s a big if. I worked on a shell based tool for a couple years and eventually accumulated the know-how and toolset to write reliable code; but nobody else could contribute as the learning curve was too great. I switched to Ruby for all new tools and never looked back. Performance is rarely a concern in this territory, and you can always offload heavy work to another process.

nightowl_games 2y ago

Performance in your shell script is a new one. Can you cite a real world example where that would ever matter? My shell scripts just initiate build/export/deploy programs. They take milliseconds to run and then the programs they start take minutes. The perf of those milliseconds couldn't be more negligible.