> Bash is "real language" if you treat it as such. Yes, there are plenty of spaghetti scripts out there, riddled with global variables and full of side-effects, but if you write shell in a principled manner, you can solve some pretty big problems with ease, and you can write maintainable code.
Even carefully written bash code tends to be much less maintainable than code in better languages. It's just badly designed on multiple levels, like the famous post about PHP. Yes, if you're really careful you can write decent code in Malbolge - but why would you?
> I wouldn't start new projects in shell, of course, but one area in which I think the shell shines is in writing integration tests for tools. More on this in a recent post I wrote: https://jmmv.dev/2023/10/unit-testing-with-shtk.html
The fact that you've written something that compiles to shell scripts rather than writing shell scripts rather undermines your claim that shell is a decent language. Integration tests of tools are important, but I'd still find e.g. TCL a much better way to write them.
Even carefully written bash code tends to be much less maintainable than code in better languages. It's just badly designed on multiple levels, like the famous post about PHP. Yes, if you're really careful you can write decent code in Malbolge - but why would you?
> I wouldn't start new projects in shell, of course, but one area in which I think the shell shines is in writing integration tests for tools. More on this in a recent post I wrote: https://jmmv.dev/2023/10/unit-testing-with-shtk.html
The fact that you've written something that compiles to shell scripts rather than writing shell scripts rather undermines your claim that shell is a decent language. Integration tests of tools are important, but I'd still find e.g. TCL a much better way to write them.