The most effective combination I've found so far is jq + basic shell tools. I still think jq's syntax and data model is unbelievably elegant and powerful once you get the hang of it - but its "standard library" is unfortunately sorely lacking in many places and has some awkward design choices in others, which means that a lot of practical everyday tasks - such as aggregations or even just set membership - are a lot m…
but have in the last year or so, tried to start writing things that will be read/used by other people in python or java
why? because most people don't have a clue how bash scripts work, but can read/debug python and java with ease, and both can be run as shell scripts too
the mac has sqlite installed by default as well, so there's a powerful combo available on every mac
but I totally do what you're doing all the time, and it is my default go to if I have to get something done fast :D