Jim Wildman wrote:
> Which sort of defeats the portability issue...
Python is more portable in that it works the same way (or in
well-documented different ways) on every machine (including Mac and
Windows). Many of the world's UNIX machines don't have BASH, and
different implementations of "the same" shell (e.g. ksh) work differently.
>
> Refusing to use anything other than /bin/sh and your basic Unix 'common
> denominator tools' is a great way to force yourself to learn all kinds
> of applications.
>
You're right, if your goal is to learn to use all of those tools, then
Python isn't much help.
> comm, cut, sort, awk, sed, ls, the testing flags within the shell, find,
>
> Granted, Perl in particular was written to do a 'better' job than
> these tools. But for a learning experience, nothing beats the basics.
> And once you have the basics down cold, adding something like Perl, or
> Python really makes a difference.
>
I agree. I am very glad that I learned to use those tools. OTOH, if
your goal is to crack a nut, rather than learn UNIX, use Python.
> Kind of like really good mathmaticians have the addition, subtraction,
> multiplication and division down cold before trying Calculus, etc.
>
--ronan
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