[reacweb]

Very interesting article and I agree with most of the points. One point I strongly disagree is what is called "Code clarity" where the author replaces conditional expressions (https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Cond...) by function calls.

I agree that the function call introduces a better name. The problem is that this name is specific to the author of the script. It replaces a reusable tricky knowledge of the language by a simple knowledge of the author usages.

If we take into account the increased verbosity, increased typing, increased number of lines, there is a clear loss in using these functions.

For me, adding a comment would be far enough and far less annoying.

[peeters]

I disagreed with that too, but mostly because those tests are a core part of Bash programming. If you don't know what they mean by reading them, then you just need to learn.

It'd be like defining an "and" function and writing

    if ( and(conditionA, conditionB) ) {
        //do something
    }

because "&&" is too confusing. It's just syntax. Learn it.

And on the subject of &&, it's interesting that in his example about clarity he chooses to use short-circuit and for brevity instead of the more readable if block.