You have one tool that you know well. I have thousands of tools that I've learned daily and I wrap with a bash script..except when I need python/tcl or C. Most of what I do in python/tcl/C is truly complicated, needs to be fast or use a data structure other than an array: as it should be. Most of what I do in the shell is as simple as the userspace tools and bash will let it be. Write the one liner above in python without importing a library.

> python -c "for i in range(4): print(__import__('os').urandom(12)[__import__('random').randint(1,4):12])"

Or something like it, that bash one liner is pretty unreadable and full of side effects that may or may not be needed. A small 3 line python file would be cleaner and more readable.

I think most people are spoiled by being able to install anything; I work in a locked down environment and getting anything non-sanctioned in is very difficult, and the sanctioning process is tedious if nothing else.

That, and the fact that libraries are evolving- which is why we end up with horrible things like package/library version pinning.

For instance the "os" module has an "urandom" function that does essentially the same as the "dd" in the bash script. Of course you could also read from the device so you wouldn't need to import "os". You would need to import "random" to get access to the random number generator, though, but it's still part of the standard library.

We had to install it for a code review tool I built.

But despite Bash's weird syntax, I love how we can do very complex tasks within a few lines.

Even if pyhton is installed it isn't certain if it is v.2 or 3.

Neither bash nor python seem to be preinstalled on BSDs.