The article mentioned printf '%q ', but it is a bit hard to find. Here is a handy way to remember it.

First, define this function:

    quote-argv() { printf '%q ' "$@"; }
    # (uses subtle vectorization of printf over args)

Now this works correctly:

    ssh example.com "$(quote-argv ls 'file with spaces')"
    ls: cannot access 'file with spaces': No such file or directory

In contrast to:

    $ ssh example.com ls 'file with spaces'
    ls: cannot access 'file': No such file or directory
    ls: cannot access 'with': No such file or directory
    ls: cannot access 'spaces': No such file or directory

And yes the "hidden argv join" of ssh is VERY bad, and it is repeated in shell's eval builtin.

They should both only take a SINGLE arg.

It is basically a self-own because spaces are an OPERATOR in shell! (the operator that separates words)

When you concatenate operators and variables, then you are mixing code and data, which is a security problem.

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As for the exec workaround, I think this is also deficiency of shell. Oils will probably grow an 'invoke' builtin which generalizes 'command' and 'builtin', which are non-orthogonal.

'command true' means "external or builtin" (disabling shell function lookup), but there should be something that means "external only".