Bash-like scripting in shells is prevalent in operating systems but I don’t understand why, when it doesn’t have the syntax to make programming easy like other languages. What features does bash have that make it so suitable for shells? Why even new operating systems like Redox OS choose a very similar syntax over a completely different programming language?
They’re asking why it became available everywhere.
Because other languages available at that time lacked certain programming conveniences found in bash :) Despite its shortcomings, it’s still a very convenient language for running other programs, working with files, and piping output from one program to another, or to a file. Bash was first released in 1989, and I don’t know exactly when it passed the threshold for widespread adoption, but I can’t think of anything that would’ve been a better alternative.
I think OP is also asking “why aren’t people switching to something else now” which is a completely different question.
Because it’s automatically available in basically every Linux distribution without having to install any additional software.
So it became ubiquitous because it was ubiquitous.
Got it.
yea … for me, until proven otherwise, I’m thinking bash + *nix shell ecosystem is basically a COBOL that isn’t cool to make fun of (yet?).
All of the bash apologia I see whenever it comes up is not really encouraging. I get it, it’s got some handy features, but overall it’s clearly suboptimal for many, and that we keep on using because we’ve been keeping on using it but convince ourselves it’s good/cool … is not healthy.
Because it was easily possible to become ubiquitous, because, well, what I said.
There really is no other reason. Bash scripting is slow and lacks a lot of features. But it simply works.
IMO it became ubiquitous because it was a superset of the already-ubiquitous Bourne shell.