Re: shell scripts.
Hello,
> of course you're right that Bourne shell has been around for decades, i
> guess i wasn't thinking about that one since i really don't know anyone
> who uses that as their primary login shell.
For quite some time, I used tcsh as login shell and Bourne for scripts...
> perhaps it's because i've programmed in C for a bit and i have a good
> memory, but i didn't think that learning perl was so tough.
Actually, I've had the same experience!
It's like C, but if you need a couple of lines of sed or awk, just bung
them in - no pipes, children, zombies or whatever.
> especially with that great O'Reilly book as a guide.
I was learning just from the manpages...
> > Of course, for big programs one should use perl.
> > I read a rule somewhere: "If the program is the size of a Makefile,
> > write the program in a shell; for larger programs, write it in perl."
Then again, even for small programs, you are likely to write a better
program if you have a better tool. (For example, you'll probably put in
more error-checking if you can say `/^valid input line$/ or die'.)
Jiri <jiri@baum.com.au>
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