Shell vs. other high-level languages
>>>>> shawn wilson <ag4ve.us@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> On Jul 27, 2011 4:28 AM, "Ivan Shmakov" <ivan@gray.siamics.net> wrote:
>>>>> shawn wilson <ag4ve.us@gmail.com> writes:
>>> However, I'd look at some of the bio perl modules if this was the
>>> type of data I was looking at. Either way, learning dozens of
>>> tools to manipulate lots of data is quite time consuming, prone to
>>> failure, and quite frankly senseless.
>> How it's different to learning dozens of functions documented in
>> perlfunc(3)? Or even more, should CPAN modules be taken into
>> account? How could it be that the Shell commands do not form a
>> library, or a set of, of a sort?
> Different commands use different switches
How it's different to different functions using different
arguments' order?
> and do the same thing (sed vs awk vs grep for tons of uses),
However, it's Perl that has “There's more than one way to do it”
as its motto.
> bash is slower.
There're, indeed, are the cases when it's observable. There,
however, are the cases when it's not. I would also argue that
the Shell commands implemented in a compiled language (say, C)
are somewhat more common than the Perl functions implemented
that way.
> And I find it easier for bad / different data to break a shell script
> (well I can technically stop most languages from earring with try /
> catch which is a plus but not the point) and verifying data in bash
> is a pita.
It depends more on a programmer's competence, than on the
language.
> Also, idk of any debug option in bash (perl -d, gdb, etc).
There's the -x (xtrace) Bash option, though it isn't comparable
to, say, GDB.
And I don't remember myself ever using Perl's debugger.
> However, this is not answering the op's question. So, while I
> started this, I'll start a new thread if we wish to continue this
> (preferably with code examples :) ). And I do hope you wish to
> continue this as I find the debate fun but way OT (per op question)
> at this point.
Actually, I don't feel that I'm in position to advocate the use
of Shell. Also, this discussion is OT not only per the OP's
question, but also to this very mailing list.
I've already mentioned that news:comp.unix.shell has a few folks
that could provide much more insight on the questions above than
I possible could. Therefore, I'd prefer continuing the thread
there.
--
FSF associate member #7257 [np. Jami Sieber — Unspoken]
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