I'm hopeful that Deno can be just that runtime. Since its a single binary, its trivial to install and script for. TBH, I don't have any technical reasons for JS/TS over python besides that I have coworkers that have never had to learn python and would prefer not to.

  /**
   * cat.ts
   */
  for (let i = 0; i < Deno.args.length; i++) {
    const filename = Deno.args[i];
    const file = await Deno.open(filename);
    await Deno.copy(file, Deno.stdout);
    file.close();
  }