Neither Python nor Ruby offer a simple interface to concurrency, serialization and terseness. Not even close. And aren't moving in the desired direction. Perl could have tried... but it's a separate can of worms, and still not quite there.

PowerShell is a missed opportunity. A project with a ton of resources dedicated by a company with bottomless coffers... which ended up being sub-par.

I wish there was a sensible alternative, but I haven't found one yet.