I mean yes, it's a bit esoteric, but so is every other data manipulation package/language. Look at numpy, dplyr, q, spark, or even sql for similar use cases. There's no easymode way to express arbitrary data operations, especially not when you want them to be performant.

If you don't need the advanced data manipulation capabilities of tools like pandas/dplyr (and if you're using comprehensions only, you don't), there are much easier to use options like apache nifi. Horses for courses.