This is called ANSI-C quoting[1], and I am surprised it is not more popular, because I think it provides a good compromise with readability and power.

I used it myself when I wrote a script that generates a self executing bash script to restore mtimes for directories[2]

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#ANSI_002d...

[2]: https://github.com/unqueued/storetouch

Thanks!