Rust may actually be a solution in this space. It is better typed and more testable than Python. It has fewer issues with environmental dependencies due. It is easy to install and build.
There is ongoing work to rewrite the coreutils in Rust, and if they were exposed with an ergonomic library interface, would provide a lot of the value of shell with much better safety.
Rust is _a lot_ slower to develop than sh/bash/Python, though. If your script is in reality a semi-complex CLI tool, then Rust is great, but if it's a 1k line shell script, Python/Ruby/JS (especially with Deno) are better options.
For sure! I used to think that python was the next logical step for a growing project that started out life as a shell script, but now I think we have even better choices like rust.
There is ongoing work to rewrite the coreutils in Rust, and if they were exposed with an ergonomic library interface, would provide a lot of the value of shell with much better safety.