Reading a book on it can give you a better idea of which tasks might be faster done that way, so that when you run into one, you're better equipped to recognize it as such than you might otherwise be.
I remember reading a book about the Shell and bash 15 years ago. It was the only book I read about the topic, but it helped me a great deal to develop an intuition about what it can do.
Didn't prevent me though from getting sometimes lost in crafting complex scripts, where manual work or a java-program would have been faster.
Well, that's sort of the problem with bash scripting - its range of capabilities, combined with its atrocious syntax and various limitations, makes it something of an attractive nuisance, where you end up in a rabbit hole of "how do I do this in bash" while doing it in anything else would be more productive.
Maybe the most important thing to learn about shell scripting is when not to use it. Alas, if the book that teaches that skill has been written, I have yet to run across it.
The shell is a tool, as is a proficiency in C, Python, Java, Golang, etc. The more tools you can successfully wield, the more you can build. Just because you're not super proficient in the shell doesn't mean someone else might be the same, so you shouldn't simply dismiss it. It is simply another tool to use and your "when not to use" question can literally be used with ANY technology.
As an exercise, try replacing bash / shell scripting with SQL or C or Python. This is the fallacy in your argument :)
> " Just because you're not super proficient [...] As an exercise [...] This is the fallacy in your argument "
This assumption of missing knowledge and handing out of an "exercise" in logical thinking comes across rather patronising.
Also I'm not sure where the argument was, that you found a fallacy in.
Thank you for your contribution, nevertheless. I too believe that the decision on whether to use a tool or not, depends on your knowledge about it.
I don't believe I did "simply dismiss it". But perhaps I was insufficiently clear in saying that bash is relatively unusual in making it tricky to identify the point at which to stop trying to force it through hoops and use something more powerful and easy to work with instead.
It can also show you the opposite, understanding something better might make you realize it's not as useful as you thought before, or might not be applicable to your needs.
