Re:Why Create a New Unix Shell?
by rendaw on Thursday February 01, 2018 @04:50AM
(#16280614)
I disagreed with this strongly.
> concurrent processes
Job control is disabled in shell scripts, and your only other option is juggling process ids. Combined with nearly nonexistent exception handling using anything more than a single process at a time is like pulling teeth.
Things like ssh have super awkward workarounds using control pipes.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a shell script use concurrent processes in the wild.
Python's subprocess library is excellent and makes concurrent processes a breeze.
> file system
With some minor exceptions, I can't think of any FS ops I'd do in shell that isn't just a couple letters longer in Python and 10 times more flexible.
The only reason to use shell is that it has a simple syntax for pipelines.
I rewrite any script > 2 lines in Python and have no regrets.
> concurrent processes
Job control is disabled in shell scripts, and your only other option is juggling process ids. Combined with nearly nonexistent exception handling using anything more than a single process at a time is like pulling teeth.
Things like ssh have super awkward workarounds using control pipes.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a shell script use concurrent processes in the wild.
Python's subprocess library is excellent and makes concurrent processes a breeze.
> file system
With some minor exceptions, I can't think of any FS ops I'd do in shell that isn't just a couple letters longer in Python and 10 times more flexible.
The only reason to use shell is that it has a simple syntax for pipelines.
I rewrite any script > 2 lines in Python and have no regrets.