[pornel]

That's the thing — Python can break with any OS update (I personally can break it whenever I touch it ;)

OTOH a script for /bin/sh written 30 years ago has a good chance running today unchanged.

Having said that, I still would not recommend shell for anything that needs to be robust and secure.

[Bystroushaak]

Well. I've been using python personally since 2007, and it never broke with update (I still occasionally run scripts written for 2.5). Also, I am working as a python backend dev, dealing with hundreds of systems (we are deploying 270+ systems and supporting another 340 user built docker images built on top of py library), and no problems there either. In my previous job, I was doing deployment to 4000+ kiosk computers, and still, no problems with python breaking.

What was definitely problematic was the update from 2 to 3. Another problem may be dependency management (people not pinning dependencies). But the python itself? What does it even mean? Interpreter not starting?

[cozzyd]

If you're using Python as a bash script replacement for various individual standalone scripts, typically you would be using system libraries without pinning dependencies, in which case you'll break on various OS updates as Python libraries don't seem to value backwards compatibility. Sure you could include a virtual environment with every script but that's not very ergonomic and will really add up...

[Bystroushaak]

I would say python's stdlib is mostly stable.

Usually when I port shell scripts to python, I create a folder for it and throw in some setup.py / requirements.txt. But lately, I've automated most of the deb package creation process (https://copier.readthedocs.io), and I typically create the whole deb package. Of course, for single use stuff, I don't bother with either.