why?
Because bash feels clunky to write and work with for anything non-trivial, especially compared to other scripting languages.
Why not another scripting language (no compile necessary)?
Because bash and sh are installed nearly everywhere. Any other scripting language means the user is required to have that installed, and that is far less likely to be the case.
If I could write my scripts in a nice syntax, but be sure my users will be able to use it effortlessly by distributing to them compiled versions, then that would make both of our lives easier!
Thoughts? Are there any languges that do this?
Just use Python. If you absolutely need it on every system use go and compile it down to a binary.
Hate this because most bootstrapping I do is within a
Dockerfile
where I don’t want to install the entire runtime and its dependencies just to complete a build step.