4 ms·
This is an excellent article that helps people decide against writing shell scripts. I abandoned doing so shortly after I switched to linux. Since then I was
by shevy-java 2mo ago
This is an excellent article that helps people decide
against writing shell scripts. I abandoned doing so
shortly after I switched to linux. Since then I was
also using ruby. I still do not understand why people
would prefer shell scripts over ruby (or python). On
systems without ruby or python, one may see a benefit
in using shell scripts; other than that I fail to see
why shell scripts are necessary.
Shell scripts simply suck for many reason. They are
ugly, verbose, convoluted, outright stupid too such
as argument passing into functions. Then there is
straight up retarded stuff such as case/esac. Whoever
came up with that was clearly an incompetent language
designer.
- Sleaker 2mo agoAhh yes, that Bourne guy is clearly incompetent.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Bourne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Bourne
- garethrowlands 2mo agoI like your 2026 perspective. Objectively, the posix shell syntax is genuinely bad, even though the overall system that it enabled is amazing. It's a very old system that took off because it solved a problem - history is kind to it because of that context. Though, awk is around the same age and provides a proof-by-existence that posix shell syntax didn't have to be make these mistakes.
- mondainx 2mo agoMostly agree, but many times there is no python nor ruby on a system, whereas there may always be shell available for scripts like these.