[runeks]

If doing even simple things requires looking up documentation, why does it matter whether the shell script is long or short?

Spending extra time doing simple things — because you need to Google e.g. "how to pass multiple space-separated arguments from a string to a command" — is also a waste of time.

[coliveira]

Because the shell is available everywhere. A programming language needs to be installed first to be of any use. I still understand that there is a need for a simple command processor that is independent of a programming language for simple tasks.

[runeks]

> A programming language needs to be installed first to be of any use.

I have that taken care of already

[coliveira]

This works for you, but many people don't have the luxury of knowing which languages are installed in another system.