Re: [tlug] What is the most appropriate scripting language

[Joe Larabell <fred62@example.com>]

> > Why learn yet something else?

But why not (learn something else, that is)?

Many times when I was faced with a relatively simple task and no time
pressure, I chose to write in the language I didn't already know. That's a
good way to learn a new language -- for me, reading books does nothing
unless I have a real project I'm trying to complete. I feel that learning
one language and sticking with it forever just means you'll never really
develop the gut feel for which language works better in which situation
(something it seems most of those who replied have already developed).

If I had to pick one, though, that every hacker should know (and to answer
the original question) it would have to be Bourne shell, IMHO.

But, as long as we're touting our favorites, my first scripting language
was csh (Sun's C shell, not tcsh). I can still whip stuff up faster in csh
than in any other language, although I use perl a lot now. I know there
are web pages warning about anomalies in csh... I still like it and I've
written some fairly large csh scripts in the past.

And, just for grins, I haven't heard anybody mention Tcl yet ;-)...

---
Joseph L (Joe) Larabell            Never fight with a dragon
http://larabell.org                     for thou art crunchy
                                  and goest well with cheese.