&gt;&gt; No scripting language can ever integrate with the host system quite as well as shell scripts can.<p>&gt; What is the basis for this? Shell script is a scripting language (more precisely, a set of scripting languages with similar features.) The difference between shell scripting languages and other scripting languages is that the former are optimized around the need to scale down to a convenient line-by-line way to work with the system in a REPL; while the others may support work in a REPL it is not what they are optimized for.<p>Disagree.  The defining characteristic of shell scripting languages is that they are a shell that can be scripted.  What&#x27;s a shell?  It&#x27;s a program designed to be a layer around the OS, <i>exposing all of the capabilities of the OS to the user in a convenient form</i>.<p>So the only way a non-shell scripting language can become that powerful is to become a shell scripting language.