Bash and Perl

Perl's foremost use case is to be a programming language, Bash's is to be a programmable "things" launcher. And of course, while making it easier to be programmed, we have to remember it's still a command-line shell with lots of sugar on top. All of Perl's operations are done within the same process and memory space — Of course, convince perl to eval() or system() or `` your code, and it's game over. But you are very seldom fork()ing inside Perl — And when you do, it's clear to you an external thing is being called.

I do argue (see my above comment) for the utility of some sorts of bashisms, particularly those that help forked process' control and quoting (another favorite of mine is to use $() instead of ``, as it's *way* clearer. I won't argue for using Bash when you use arrays and local scopes — That's a clear indication you should switch to a real programming language. One that, between many other things, separates parsing/compiling from executing, because your program will most likely be complex enough to warrant it!

But yes, people complain about Perl being write-only. Bash constructs and mindset are way worse than Perl.