Hey I've been using Linux for a while and thought it was time to finally dive into shell scripting.
The problem is I've failed to find any significant advantage of using Bash over something like Perl or Python. Are there any performance or power differences between the two? I'd figure Python/Perl would be more well suited as far as power and efficiency goes.
The most important advantage of POSIX shell scripts over Python or Perl scripts is that a POSIX shell is available on virtually every Unix machine.  (There are also a few tasks shell scripts happen to be slightly more convenient for, but that's not a major issue.)  If the portability is not an issue for you, I don't see much need to learn shell scripting.
Is there an advantage to using Bash over Perl or Python?