There are plenty of alternative shells that don't suffer these problems. Posix syntax didn't win because it was better - it's the classic 'worse is better'.
> Old doesn't imply arcane.
Indeed so. For example, awk is about the same age but doesn't suffer the same problems.
> the shell syntax was never meant to be anything like a systems or application programming language
A programmable shell is not only like a programming language, it is a programming language. Systems tasks have some specialised requirements but, overall, scripting is programming. There is nothing in the problem domain that requires the posix string-substitution problems.
If fish or oil had existed back then, they would likely have won, since they are better.
> Old doesn't imply arcane.
Indeed so. For example, awk is about the same age but doesn't suffer the same problems.
> the shell syntax was never meant to be anything like a systems or application programming language
A programmable shell is not only like a programming language, it is a programming language. Systems tasks have some specialised requirements but, overall, scripting is programming. There is nothing in the problem domain that requires the posix string-substitution problems.
If fish or oil had existed back then, they would likely have won, since they are better.