Whether PHP is a "bad" language or C# is better than Java is harder (and generally a waste of time -- pick something that works 95% of your use-case and figure out the other 5%), but refining the phrase to "no commercially used language is objectively superior to another" starts to make the statement useless to the point of irrelevance.
And an effort to get rid of bash as Oil shell. (They really need a better name for Googleability.)
Thats my point. They're tools not lifestyle choices. Learn your tools, know your tools, don't be afraid of other people's tools.
They all, usually, have some sort of value.
I might as well note this too:
I am speaking in broad strokes, you're going to be able to pinhole this as much as you want because of that. I'm simply suggesting that if your immediate reaction to how another organization uses these tools to replace A with B at a certain level is "this is clearly inferior" instead of "well, what can I learn from this" well, there's the problem.
I used to think programmers/computer scientists where open minded people. Then I realized as a whole it tends to be we're only open minded if its within the domain we chose to be most active in
Still far and away better than any other folks I've met, of course, but this is really a community culture problem, which is why I find it so counter productive.
Alternatives to bash? Many do exist. zsh is bash compatible but does implement its own tools and subsets.
If you're looking for something that removes the bash syntax there is powershell, which does run on Linux/macOS now as well:
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell
Then of course, there is oil shell:
https://github.com/oilshell/oil
which is more like a subset of bash (and somewhat close to the idea of stripping away all the legacy stuff)
Then there is xonsh: lets you use python as a basis for most everything
The stalwart fish:
fish shell has alot of niceties and a more object oriented syntax (kind of)
and for the daring there is ergonomica: https://ergonomica.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
which has a lisp like syntax
as does https://github.com/dundalek/closh which uses clojure and its syntax
and i'm sure there are more.
I would say some languages are objectively superior to other for specific tasks. The problem is that very often the task to solve doesn't exactly fall within the realm of any given programming language and one has to make compromise.
As for bash, I use it when I feel it's the best option, but I also think it's the worst programming language that I have to use. I wish there were better options. Are there any modern promising replacements for bash?