[ptspts]

Depending on the task to be solved, a Bash script (using AWK, Coreutils etc.) executes much slower than the correspinding Perl or Python script, and having to run slow scripts often interactively can have a strong negative impact on developer productivity, especially on flow state (of mind).

[bloblaw]

BSD grep vs GNU grep has burned me enough times that when I do anything moderately complex in a bash script, I quickly move to Perl. And since Perl is installed most everywhere (or can be bundled up easily with PAR::Packer), it's an easy decision for me.