For anything launching processes, I always regret it if I don&#x27;t use a bash script. (Not sure if you&#x27;re lumping or separating sh from bash...)<p>I like Python for anything that processes a pile of data, but doesn&#x27;t need to glue many other programs together. I like Perl if and only if it&#x27;s a one liner or very straightforward text filter, I just prefer Perl to situations that might otherwise require sed&#x2F;awk.<p>But for shell scripts, like makefiles, I&#x27;d love to see a better alternative, but I just don&#x27;t think one&#x27;s out there. For certain kinds of tasks, I don&#x27;t think a good alternative exists.