Why? Do you think it weird that most Windows user couldn't write a .bat script? I've worked support at a large university that used Unix as its main desktop OS for staff and students in most departments. I'd bet that most people there couldn't write bash script. 90+% of peoples interaction with the OS was click browser icon, click e-mail icon, click text editor icon and click icon/type in name at command prompt of whatever programs they needed to get work done. Writing bash scripts is simply not something that ever came up for the vast majority of users.

I've been using Unix on and off for 20 years, and I've done a bunch of Unix development work here and there (and more than just "did some programming and it was on a Unix system") - but I've no idea how to write a bash script, or a zsh one, for that matter.

If I need to automate something, I use a GNU Makefile, or Python. That way it works on Unix as well as on Windows...

I have had what most people would consider a great career and I don't write bash scripts. If I need to automate something then Ruby is my glue of choice or for simple things Makefiles.

>It's super weird that anyone exposed to a Unix system can't write a bash script!

Why is it weird? I've been working with UNIX systems for more than 20 years, somewhat of a Vim expert and I don't think I can write a bash script. Never needed to. Sure I can modify .bash_profile and I can read bash scripts but writing them to do something useful? Nope. I'd use something like Perl or awk instead. The only time I ever wrote any kind of shell script on my memory was a tcsh (csh?) one in the 90s because the box didn't have any scripting languages installed.

TBH, it depends... I usually have to double-check the usr/env shebang for bash in the first place.. even then, will google my way through it.

I work mostly in node.js these days, and will have others on windows or mac, and deploys to linux. A node script is usually safer for me, and I'm far more proficient... shell.js, mz and babel-cli makes it easier to do task scripts for automation. ymmv though.

It I had to write a bash script without the benefit of google, I'd totally fail.

Well, I think shell scripting is fun, so I might agree that you'd hope users who had spent at least a little time using the CLI _could_ write a bash script. That said, I suspect a lot of people, devs included, just haven't needed to automate/batch things outside of whatever their normal toolset is - and don't know what they're missing. Portability makes shell scripting especially nice - instead of fiddling with rbenv or npm or pip so that your elegant little script can run, your handy.sh is going to be easier to move to another box...