It is not clear to me why bash has two separate namespaces for long-named shell options, handled by two separate commands.
It might make sense if 'set -o' is for POSIX options only and 'shopt' for bash-specific options, but that doesn't apply. I can't figure out a consistent basis for a distinction. This makes it a bit of a pain to remember which option goes with which command, e.g. that 'pipefail' goes with set, but 'lastpipe' goes with shopt. What was the original reason behind this? Since there currently are no naming conflicts between the two namespaces, would there be any disadvantage to simply merging them and allowing all options to be manipulated using either set or shopt? Thanks, - M.
