Charles Jones wrote:

So he learned some valuable lessons:
1. Always call binaries by their full path (use /bin/ls) so you don't get bitten by an alias or something in $PATH overriding
2. bash -x -c 'command(s)' is helpful for debugging command-line shell
3. In some cases it's better to use something like: find . -name \*doc -exec command \;

I also forgot:

4. You can safely alias ls to use color, if you use --color=auto.

From the ls man page:
With --color=auto, color codes are output only if standard output is connected to a terminal (tty).

-Charles