I find it useful for scripty things once you come to terms with not needing to write to stdout. Although there are ways to do that and call into the image from shebang scripts. Also, as long as you leave the image running you can setup cron like jobs in the image.

The reason I like it for this type of thing is that all you need resides in the image instead of shell scripts scattered hither and yawn. Also, the development for these types of things I find much easier because of the ability to inspect results of every step in the workspace/playground before stitching it all together in a class. I guess in that regard it’s a similar flow to Lisp.