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> all those things I need to google because I don't remember whether an if statement in bash needs single [ ] or double [[ ]] or '' or "" or ; or spaces or all those weird gotchas.

This made me chuckle. A few years ago, I went on a learning spree to finally memorize all of these sparse semantics so I could write bash scripts fluently. I ended up having a really good grasp, could write scripts with no flailing.

Six months later, I was back to searching "bash double quotes vs single". Unless you use them every day, for years, these semantics just fall right out of your head.



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