For the same reason we don't write all of our backend tools in C: there are better languages for this domain, and better libraries which we can leverage.
For example, when running Puppet or Salt, I don't have to worry about which package manager is installed, or mucking about with checksums to see if a file needs to be replaced, or templating, or variables, or...
If I'm being honest, just the thought of writing dozens of sed and awk commands to mimic the templating offered by Jinja gives me hives.
That said, after fighting for a few years with Puppet, then Ansible, then Salt, I'm thinking that bash and make files are sorely underestimated for some of the simpler provisioning tasks. Bootstrapping a Salt Minion or a salt master is a lot more straightforward in bash than it is in Salt itself.
For example, when running Puppet or Salt, I don't have to worry about which package manager is installed, or mucking about with checksums to see if a file needs to be replaced, or templating, or variables, or...
If I'm being honest, just the thought of writing dozens of sed and awk commands to mimic the templating offered by Jinja gives me hives.
That said, after fighting for a few years with Puppet, then Ansible, then Salt, I'm thinking that bash and make files are sorely underestimated for some of the simpler provisioning tasks. Bootstrapping a Salt Minion or a salt master is a lot more straightforward in bash than it is in Salt itself.