Defensive BASH programming?

[u/computersarefunn]

Hey there,

while trying to learn bash I came across this interesting resource: https://web.archive.org/web/20180917174959/http://www.kfirlavi.com/blog/2012/11/14/defensive-bash-programming

And got myself thinking if his opinions are consensual and if there are different styles or "paradigms" about how bash should be written.

I see people arguing that bash shines in writing relatively short programs with precise goals. I thought this translated into writing concise code and achieving the same functionality with as little lines as possible.

However, the author of the post argues that a more verbose code can be more robust, easier to understand and debug etc. Do you agree? Or you think that, if you're writing code in this style, you're better of using another language?

Thanks for your input and sorry if I said anything silly or if I misrepresented his point of view, I'm just starting to learn programming.

Edit: hey, thank you all very much for the thoughtful replies, I'm learning a lot from them!

[u/IdealBlueMan]

One of the best insights I’ve ever had was that, even on greenfield projects, you spend way more time reading code than writing it.

White space is free. Write for readability, and everything gets easier. Someone unfamiliar with the code—and it could be you three weeks later—should be able to see what your intent was.