I wrote my first real (more than 3 lines) bash script at work today. It isn’t that complex, but I wanted to write it in bash instead of PHP, because I really need to learn it.
So far, color me impressed. I’m amazed at how easy it is to do stuff like string manipulation. I want to get good at it since ebuilds are written in bash, and I need the practice. My big goal is to write “dvd2mkv” in bash as well. The bonus is that it will remove one major dependency: PHP 5.1. That, and it will be hard as crap. Trial by fire, says me.
I thought I was pretty good at bash, but reading the book (O’Reilly’s Bash) has really make shell scripting much easier and far more enjoyable. There are also some good docs over at the TLDP (http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/). Enjoy!
Good luck. You’ll actually find that Bash is easier than you think, and amazingly fast at both coding and execution.