Reasons to choose Python over C++?

[Ofnuts]

But is is a script, what else are you going to call it?

Interpreted language sounds like a better name. One of the best helpers on Linux shell programming I've seen states

A shell script is a quick-and-dirty method of prototyping a complex application. Getting even a limited subset of the functionality to work in a script is often a useful first stage in project development. In this way, the structure of the application can be tested and tinkered with, and the major pitfalls found before proceeding to the final coding in C, C++, Java, Perl, or Python.

Several years ago someone asked my help to port a small script from bash to Python. They guy was amazed by the performance improvement - Python program execution was 20 times faster

Depends a lot on the script. A true script does little by itself, it mostly calls existing utilities which have been usually written by people who know their stuff and will be much faster than equivalent Python code.

IMHO the quote above is wrong, you don't rewrite the code later, if I have a script working using rsync, I'm not going to reinvent that wheel, achieving sufficient trust in the new code would require years of testing.