Backticks Are Fantastic Because Typing Is The Worst

Backticks Are Fantastic

I mean, legit awesome. Here's a contrived recreation of a real-world example I encountered:

Let's break this down. When making a symbolic link, you have to type out the absolute path to the link target. There are reasons for that (though I'd prefer ln just expanded relative links before making the symlink, tbh), but a lot of directory names are a hassle to type out. Everyone who's worked in a JVM language feels me.

Two things help:

1. If, as is often the case, you want to link to go in your current directory, you can totally omit the second argument
2. Typing some shell expression inside backticks which generates the path. If you use bash, you just have to trust your short-term memory, but hitting tab expands that expression interactively in zsh. You use zsh, right?

Some would argue that the $() subshell operator has strictly more powerful semantics than backticks because it can be nested; they are, of course, correct. Other people like subshells because when you nest them, it reads just like lisp code; they are, of course, nerds[^1]. When you don't have to nest anything, though, backticks have a killer advantage over subshells:

1. 33% fewer keystrokes

Choose your own adventure.

[^1]:

When it comes to lisp, I am, of course, a gigantic nerd myself.