Backticks are discouraged for any new scripts, since they complicate nesting, quoting, and escaping, besides being graphically less explicit. See also http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/082. The Open Group also discourages backticks: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/xrat/V4_xcu_....

    $ stat "$(which stat)"

shellcheck or its online version http://www.shellcheck.net/ help a lot

Backticks if lazy, parenthetical for complicated command lines.

$(...) doesn't trip Shellcheck and is slightly more readable and less error-prone in complex statements, e.g. if you have to nest commands.

which probably isn't the best tool to use here.

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85249/why-not-use-wh...