"Any time I have to do any serious shell scripting at work,"
Right when this happens, that very second, remember there are hundreds of other languages that can do anything bash can in a readable fashion. EG. os.system() in python. If you are writing more than 3 lines of bash you are doing it all wrong.
When I need a shell script, I write a PHP script instead.
(PHP has its oddities, but it has many benefits over Bash, including an optionally strictly-enforced type system, binary-safe strings, clear C-like syntax… and like Bash it has backticks!)
Right when this happens, that very second, remember there are hundreds of other languages that can do anything bash can in a readable fashion. EG. os.system() in python. If you are writing more than 3 lines of bash you are doing it all wrong.