No, not just because of the dollar. Because it's easier to test in isolation and allows you to use things like here docs which are useful for dealing with sql.

?

Somehow we started with a single dollar in a string, and now I am dealing with sql, here docs, and TDD?

There is a place for everything in life: for small helper makefiles, which I write simply to support me in my workflow and even to remember some interesting commands that I need to run for a certain project, I can assure you that making some simple assumptions helps me staying halfway sane.