[yes_or_gnome]

I work with a couple people who insistently write shell scripts in Python. I know it's anecdotal, but to me, it's like the metaphor 'When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' The scripts use functions liberally, but the code isn't DRY nor self-documented. Written in shell, it would take a fifth of the LOC because there's no need to use subprocess or Popen and parse the output. They're not the best developers, but I certainly trust their Python code than I would trust their shell code. And, there's plenty of work to go around, so it's better than nothing.

[remline]

As my last project developed, I moved it from simple bash scripts directly to (mostly) python utilities that had their own DSLs.. ansible, supervisord.. I expected to need to look into their source, but given the workarounds in docs and web searches that never seems to need to happen.

The resulting configuration is all configuration and not hardcoded paths mixed with Popen and random custom parsing..

I would consider custom python worse than writing bash with too much logic in the cases where you could just exit with a failure.

I think the question for your coworkers is what are they reinventing and why do they think a custom remake of it isn't a waste of everyone's time? Further, why do they think they will be more employable after making embarrassing custom internal tools? Compare that to knowing how popular tools work and perhaps contributing something small to one of them or at least being able to answer a question about them.