It's happened more than once that I've started something in bash, thinking it's a small enough job, only to see it growing in time - a lot. Sure, in theory you

It's happened more than once that I've started something in bash, thinking it's a small enough job, only to see it growing in time - a lot. Sure, in theory you could rewrite it in Python, but you don't always have that luxury in practice. Bottom line is - keep bash scripts small, but be prepared to deal with the cases when they grow like Jack's magic beanstalk.