I like xonsh.

http://xonsh.org/

It has two modes, which can be a bit confusing. A python mode and a bash-ish mode.

    testdata = $(ls -l) #Takes thes bash command 'ls -l' and saves it to the python variable testdata

    echo ${testdata.upper()} | grep XLIO

    $(ls).split("\n")

It uses some magic to figure out whether you're in a python context or a bash context, defaulting to python. If you save some stuff to a variable called "ls", you need to del(ls) before you can use ls as a command again.