"maintenance headache."

Then stop maintaining code from languages you don't understand. This is frustrating. I've seen solutions on the comments that call PYTHON! Are you effing kidding me? PYTHON ??

Granted, BASH docs aren't particularly succinct, but shell scripts are an absolute necessity in the OS world.

It's pretty simple: If you don't understand shellcode, don't maintain an OS, or rather, don't expect to be accommodated for lack of knowledge for something that's been standard for 30+ years.