At some point, failing to support $(...) is in the same ballpark FWIW, I fully disagree. (Along with, it seems, everyone else except you and Ben.) 1) There is no actual benefit to using $(...) over `...`. It is purely cosmetic. In other scripts, fine. In config.*, no. 2) Using $(...) causes a real-life problem on a real-life system. Talking about # as an analogy is a red herring. # does not cause real-life problem. I just don't understand the overwhelming need to create this problem for ourselves. -k