Comment by rlpb

I disagree. I see shell syntax as an “inversion” of normal quoting rules. Normally quoting is the default but to achieve anything special you have to use an escape. Conversely, in shell, quoting is not necessary but any special character will likely have unwanted behaviour unless you quote.

This is handy for quick scripting as a natural extension of a command line interface. A counterexample might be an equivalent script using the Python subprocess module. For a simple script, the required extra quoting overhead is not worth the trouble. For something complicated it’s essential and a shell script is no longer suitable. For something in the middle, a carefully crafted shell script (eg. one that passes shellcheck) may be the most suitable solution depending on the situation.

Both cases have their place. It’s about using the right tool for the job.