Definitely an awesome book. Borrowed it from the library and think work has it in the bookshelf somewhere. Another awesome book if you're getting into Maya scripting [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Maya-Python-Games-Film-Reference/dp/0123785782"]Maya Python for Games and Film: A Complete Reference for Maya Python and the Maya…
I'd go for python script instead. Same commands available but you gain a lot more general python functionality. Such as handling strings, lists, etc. Here's a good guide for getting started. http://www.chadvernon.com/blog/resources/python-scripting-for-maya-artists/
@xrg Yes and no. Looking at it blender uses Python 3.5 so there is not a reason you couldn't make it work but it might be difficult. So I'd recommend against it. I'm not willing to destroy my local Python install to figure it out. Anyways here's all you really have to do: * Right click this link and download. Or go to…
Not a direct answer, but in Python you just use the OS module. To be upfront though, if you are building a pipeline tools, you'd be better of using python.