Missing simple way to call external process in Emacs?

[Thomas Koch]

This is a sidenote from my previous email on continuations passing[1].

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2023-03/msg00430.html

It seems to me, that shell-command is used a lot from elisp code also in Emacs 
core, although its docstring says:

"""In Elisp, you will often be better served by calling call-process or
   start-process directly, since they offer more control and do not
   impose the use of a shell (with its need to quote arguments)."""

Apparently, shell-command is the most convenient way in Emacs core to just run 
an external process and consume its output. However as 
https://debbugs.gnu.org/12145 shows it can quickly lead to problems.

Pfuture[2] might be a better alternative, however it is not on Elpa. I put the 
pfuture author in BCC.

[2] https://github.com/Alexander-Miller/pfuture