On 8/7/07, David Brodbeck <brodbd@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> I'm about to learn bash or python scripting.
> - Which one is easiest to learn?
That's debatable, I think. Bash's syntax is more idiosyncratic, but
there's less of it.
> - Which one is more powerful?
Python.
> Or should I learn bash scripting anyway?
If you plan to do much system administration, learning bash scripting
is worthwhile. There are three reasons I can think of right off the
bat:
- Every Unix-like system you encounter will have some version of the
Bourne shell. Not every system will have Python.
- You will often need to modify or maintain other people's bash
scripts, since that's how most startup scripts and the like are written.
- Simple bash scripts can be done right from the shell prompt, which
is sometimes handy.
I wish I'd discovers Linux some ten years ago. I have literally hundreds of
AmigaDOS and ARexx scripts - some of them very powerful - that don't
even come close to converting to bash (or maybe python). Now I feel I've
to re-invent the wheel.
Thanks for your input, Manon.