Earlier quoted context omitted.
if statements are pretty simple if $command; then else fi You may be complaining about the syntax for the test command specifically or bash’s [[ builtin Also the choice of quotes changing behavior is a thing in: 1. JavaScript/typescript 2. Python 3. C/C++ 4. Rust In some cases it’s the same difference, eg: string interpolation in JavaScript with backticks
> Also the choice of quotes changing behavior is a thing in: In those languages they change what's contained in the string. Not how many strings you get. Or what the strings from that string look like. ($@ being an extreme example)
From the bash man page via StackOverflow:
> @ Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one. When the expansion occurs within double quotes, each parameter expands to a separate word. That is, "$@" is equivalent to "$1" "$2" ... If the double-quoted expansion occurs within a word, the expansion of the first parameter is joined with the beginning part of the original word, and the expansion of the last parameter is joined with the last part of the original word. When there are no positional parameters, "$@" and $@ expand to nothing (i.e., they are removed).
That’s…a lot. I think Bash is interesting in the “I’m glad it works but I detest having to work with it” kind of way. Like, fine if I’m just launching some processes or tail’ing some logs, but I’ve rarely had a time when I had to write an even vaguely complex bash script where I didn’t end up spending most of my time relearning how to do things that should be basic.
Shellcheck was a big game changer at least in terms of learning some of the nuance from a “best practice” standpoint. I also think that the way bash does things is just a little too foreign from the rest of my computing life to be retained.