choice of languages for debian system tool?
I'm thinking of writing a tool that would aspire to eventually being
something a debian sysadmin would like to have around. A very basic
tool, no gui required, should be useful for just about any unix-y
install, but I want to focus on debian.
It looks like, in order to be useful on a base install, my tool must be
either compiled or bash. Okay. My question is, to what extent would I
be alienating my audience if I used, say, interpreted python or perl?
It seems like perl is required for an awful lot of debian tools.
Naturally, I can't think of any specifics right now. I believe that
there are various compiler offerings for those two languages, but I
don't know if they're solid enough to bank on, and as a user, I really
like script tools because it's easy to find the code -- just open up the
application's file.
Please be gentle; I went to sleep last night thinking, "There are no
open source projects I can think of to start that don't already exist in
some form,"[1] and I woke up before I was quite finished sleeping with
this idea in my head. I'll have to see if it withstands scrutiny in the
light of day.
Apologies if any of this babbling makes no sense whatsoever. I'm still
exhausted, but I couldn't sleep with these questions on my mind.
[1] Yes, in many ways, it would be better for the community for me to
pitch in on an existing project. But my particular itch right now is
design, and while I suppose it's possible to come from nowhere and
suggest design changes to an existing project, it's probably not the
best way to get my feet wet. Besides, I had decided last night to take
the bug-fix approach, but then I had this "Eureka" moment I describe
above. Also, I'd like to learn how to build a debian package, and the
project I have in mind, at least the core part of it, should bfairly
simple in that regard.
--
monique
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