Let’s say have a folder of tarballs and need to install the latest version. I could reach for an additional “dedicated” tool, get it installed into the CI environment and then incorporate it into the build process, or I could just make a slight modification to my existing shell script and do something like “ls mypkg-*.tar.gz | xargs -n1 | sort -Vr | head -n1” and then move on. But then we start publishing multiple release candidates and now I need to add to that logic to further distinguish between earlier and later rc versions. And so on and so forth…

Now I’m in agreement with you that this is a bad fit for shell scripting, but it is often pragmatic and expedient. And bc there is a cliff between bash and (say) python, some of the time, you’re going to choose the path of least resistance.

Now scale this out to a small team of engineers all facing the same dumb decision of needing to make some tradeoff when they would much rather be writing application logic. The lack of a ubiquitous and robust intermediate language leads to brittle CI fraught with security vulnerabilities.

While the example I provided is a bit contrived, this behavior isn’t hypothetical. I see it everywhere I’ve worked.