Motivation

bash is a nice scripting language (especially considering its age). Close integration of interpreters with operating systems and a ton of available binaries on these systems (e.g., awk, sed, jq) make it a great choice for quick and concise scripting. In recent years, some of the scripting has moved over to Python (and a few other languages) due to availability of (standard) libraries and testing support. However, seeing import subprocess; subprocess.run([“ls”, “-l”]) or similar code in Python, and then using replacements for awk, sed, grep, git commands (and awkwardly processing their outputs) suggests that developers may use bash more if it had better libraries and testing support.

Key motivation points:

• Provide a “standard” library for bash

• Provide missing language features (without designing a new language or changing interpreters)

• Enable using the same set of functions across various operating systems

• Enable using different interpreters (and their versions) by hiding details behind APIs

Finally, in recent years, we had a feeling that programming in bash can be similar to programming in Go (e.g., an easy way to run things in parallel ()& vs. go, dealing with errors via exit codes, keeping API naming alike). Definitely not saying you should program in gobash instead of Go, but if you do end up writing a few lines in bash then they could look similar or give a similar feel like those you write in Go.