A programming language is a programming language.<p>As long as the programming language is capable enough to do the task required, it doesn't matter <i>which</i> programming language is being used.<p>Many tasks are used few and far between, so whether or not that task takes a few extra microseconds to be executed is irrelevant.<p>If the author of the article is so disturbed about the size and/or time taken of the bash program, he is perfectly entitled to release a compiled C (or some other compiled language, of course) version of the program to the deprived universe.