I agree, there is not just one true answer to it. For me, I would prefer shell scripts in many bootstrapping processes targeted on system administration. Also a

I agree, there is not just one true answer to it. For me, I would prefer shell scripts in many bootstrapping processes targeted on system administration. Also as glue language for many GNU tools, shell (then probably bash) is indispensable. With pure shell I can reduce the number of abstraction layers and dependencies. Also POSIX cross-platform compatiblity is a big point, just think of ``./configure`` in software builds.