Why do people still use backticks for command substitution?

[theclapp]

$() has been around since at least 1989, has simpler rules for nesting than backticks, and ( is easier to match with its associated) than with backticks.

Edit: Moved from Q&A to General, since it's a question about shell usage in general, and not about this tool specifically.

[theclapp]

I asked on r/commandline and got a ton of answers, some of which were surprisingly reasonable. Many people: just habit or it's just faster to type or it looks better. (I disagree with that last one.) Several people: Because it does what you need 99% of the time, which, fair. One or two: Use backticks and their shell format tool rewrites it to $() when they save 😆.

https://www.reddit.com/r/commandline/comments/1c4ly31/why_do_people_still_use_backticks_instead_of/

[mvdan]

My 2c: the people using backticks due to habit are probably not aware of the downsides. In particular, the behavior of backslashes is rather obtuse within backticks, but entirely unchanged within $().

I also personally prefer the form that makes the opening and closing tokens different, much like a block with { vs }.

[theclapp]

I also personally prefer the form that makes the opening and closing tokens different, much like a block with { vs }.

Same.