(Disclaimer: never used powershell, so unadulterated opinion here) Scripting is programming, so you want data structures. For interaction, you want human-reada

(Disclaimer: never used powershell, so unadulterated opinion here) Scripting is programming, so you want data structures. For interaction, you want human-readable syntax. e.g. programming languages mostly have a syntax: C, python, bash, fortran (exception: lisp), but they operate on data structures. We can see powershell, nushell and other structured shells (e.g. some use XML) as an attempt to "get out of the syntax business", which XML began and JSON finished (https://blog.mlab.com/2011/03/why-is-json-so-popular-developers-want-out-of-the-syntax-business/ https://blog.mlab.com/2011/03/why-is-json-so-popular-develop...). This has been taken further into human read/write domains... with mixed reception: ant, XSLT, json as a config format. After all, parsing and "the syntax business" has a practical purpose.