Don't link to tldp.org for bash advice #24

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2025-11-06T13:30:49-06:00

GiteaMirror commented

2025-11-06 13:30:49 -06:00

Originally created by @rpdelaney on GitHub (Dec 20, 2018).

shamelessly copy-pasted from exercism/bash/issues/171

tldp.org's shell scripting pages have very high Google page rank. They're detailed, extensive, and easy to read, and much of the information in there is useful. But the examples they use are very often riddled with code that runs between smelly and bug-prone to outright dead wrong and dangerous. An advanced bash scripter could maybe read through tldp and filter out the bad stuff, but pointing newbies there is a bad thing indeed because they will learn lots of bash anti-patterns.

The tldp bash pages are too expansive to make a detailed review of everything that's wrong with them, and I'm not the most qualified person in the world to do so anyway. But this reddit post by @geirha is as good a spot as any to start getting an idea of what I'm talking about.

Instead, consider linking only to these:

Greg's wiki: Bash Guide and Bash FAQ would be the starting point, and imho it wouldn't be bad to throw in an explicit link to Bash pitfalls too.
GNU Bash manual many GNU manuals are hidden treasures and in the case of bash, their manual is vastly more accurate than the sites with pagerank (like tldp.org).
Bash-hackers wiki This is prominently linked in the topic of the #bash IRC channel on freenode. Personally I don't think it's as useful overall as the links above, but it's still way better than tldp.

Originally created by @rpdelaney on GitHub (Dec 20, 2018). _shamelessly copy-pasted from exercism/bash/issues/171_ tldp.org's shell scripting pages have very high Google page rank. They're detailed, extensive, and easy to read, and much of the information in there is useful. But the examples they use are very often riddled with code that runs between smelly and bug-prone to outright dead wrong and _dangerous_. An advanced bash scripter could maybe read through tldp and filter out the bad stuff, but pointing newbies there is a bad thing indeed because they will learn lots of bash anti-patterns. The tldp bash pages are too expansive to make a detailed review of everything that's wrong with them, and I'm not the most qualified person in the world to do so anyway. But [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/commandline/comments/8q99nd/advanced_bashscripting_guide_an_indepth/e0i7ixk/?context=10000) reddit post by @geirha is as good a spot as any to start getting an idea of what I'm talking about. Instead, consider linking only to these: * Greg's wiki: [Bash Guide](http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide) and [Bash FAQ](http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ) would be the starting point, and imho it wouldn't be bad to throw in an explicit link to [Bash pitfalls](https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls) too. * [GNU Bash manual](http://gnu.org/s/bash/manual) many GNU manuals are hidden treasures and in the case of bash, their manual is vastly more accurate than the sites with pagerank (like tldp.org). * [Bash-hackers wiki](http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/) This is prominently linked in the topic of the `#bash` IRC channel on freenode. Personally I don't think it's as useful overall as the links above, but it's still way better than tldp.