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godelski • today at 7:01 AM • 3 replies • view on HN

  > I think minority do
Let's be real, the minority of people understand bash. It is a terrible language with tons of footguns[0], albeit a very useful language and still worth learning. The number of ~/.claude/settings.json I've seen with "permissions": { "allow": ["Bash(find *)"]} I've seen is crazy[1]. Hell, most people I talk to think `find` is a tool that is used for searching for files. I mean... it does that... along with arbitrary code execution ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[0] https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls

Edit:

[1] Fuck it, here's the lazy search: https://github.com/search?q=%22Bash(find%20*)%22&type=code

Replies

isityettime • today at 4:12 PM

`find` isn't a Bash built-in and has basically nothing to do with Bash as a language. Not knowing `find` is a basic Unix literacy issue, not a Bash language footgun.

You're right that Bash is full of footguns, especially around quoting. And you're also right that that issue is even worse— and I think it's somewhat representative. Some of the cited Bash footguns are also about general lack of familiarity with CLI conventions and stringly typed data generally, like the dirname quoting issue.

ashwin42 • today at 8:56 AM

over 30 years ago bash was magic for us oldies :-D

doublerabbit • today at 10:56 AM

> It is a terrible language

It's not. It only becomes terrible when you misuse for it's original purpose.

Microsoft Excel isn't terrible, but the way it gets used makes it terrible.

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