There is a lot of "better write this in python"-ism here, and while I agree with the general sentiment that a more complex script shouldn't be written in bash,

There is a lot of "better write this in python"-ism here, and while I agree with the general sentiment that a more complex script shouldn't be written in bash, there are a ton of use cases where it is preferable to have it written in bash. So thank you for this post. It was very educational.