[sanderjd]

Yep, every language has footguns and other kinds of quirks, but I contend that the "footguns per character" ratio in shell is unusually high. (It is not unique in having a high ratio though; other popular languages, like c++ for instance, also have this issue.)

[eitland]

The worst (level of nastyness * usage) offenders all probably have a reason for being popular despite their flaws:

- Bash: installed everywhere you want to work (yes, who actually wants to work on Windows ;-)

- C/C++: when speed/size matters there was no alternative except Assembly until recently

- Javascript: until recently this was the most sane option for client side code on the web (Active X and Java applets existed yes but managed to be even worse.)

- PHP: Low cost hosting, Function-As-A-Service way before that became popular, shared nothing architecture, instant reload for local development bliss

[sanderjd]

Couldn't agree more.