[mdaniel]

This is the same debate folks have between Maven and Gradle: do you want CI code to be able to do *anything* that Python or Node can do, or do you want well defined knobs people can turn. If nothing else, it makes code reviews for CI way less drama than trying to use some bespoke dsl-in-python that re-implements {job: {steps: [{run: ...}]}} in a less legible way

[stevage]

Yeah. My experience has often been that you end up with a task that is very easy and familiar to write in say Bash, that you then have to solve a puzzle to write in Ansible/Puppet/whatever. Which feels exactly like what you're saying: a DSL re-implementing something else in a less legible way.

I guess it's like anything: for the right task, the right tool works well. But invariably, a tool will eventually be pushed into use for the wrong task.