I’ve been struggling with a rather complex shell script, and it’s becoming apparent that Bash might not be the best choice for this particular task. While I usually gravitate towards statically typed languages like Go or Rust, I’ve noticed that many people recommend alternative languages such as Lua or Python for scripting tasks.
I’m curious to know your opinions and experiences with scripting languages for larger or more intricate shell scripts. Have you ever encountered a situation where Bash just didn’t cut it, and if so, which scripting languages did you turn to for a more effective solution? Are there any specific languages you found particularly suitable for debugging, testing, or handling complex logic in your shell scripts?
I usually use Awk to do the heavy lifting within my Bash scripts (e.g. arg parsing, filtering, stream transformation), or I’ll embed a Node.JS script for anything more advanced. In some cases, I’ll use eval to process generated bash syntax, or I’ll pipe into sh (which can be a good way to set up multiprocessing). I’ve also wanted to try zx, but I generally just stick to inlining since it saves a dependency.