> rewrite it in a real language

This refrain shows up in every shell script discussion here, and hot take, I find it mostly ill-founded hogwash. Some of the worst spaghetti code I've seen is such Python and Javascript rewrites.

Choice of language only really helps when it encourages developers to use patterns that fit the underlying problem domain. However, Python's path of least resistance is OOP architecture, which usually fits terribly in the domains where shell scripts are ubiquitous, e.g. glue code between systems, infra administrative tasks, etc.

Almost all shell script tasks boil down to executing a linear collection of steps, and by organizing code thusly, I find shell scripts to keep code short, sweet, and very maintainable. Using a data-first design, with well-designed global state typically meshes well with shell's strengths—dynamic scope, pipes, word-splitting, etc, not to mention coreutils, grep, awk, etc.

IMHO, all the shell hate boils down to not recognizing an impedance mismatch between the programming paradigms of the programmer and language. Try writing Haskell like you would write Java or vice-vesa, and you'll end up with just as much of a mess.

</rant> This topic is a bug-bear of mine, for whatever reason. :shrug: