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Comment by sytelus | Hacker News Reader

How much of these is really still relevant with now Python quickly becoming new scripting language across all platforms? I now tend to prefer 3 lines of Python vs 1 line of cryptic unmaintanable Linux-only bash. With new great subprocess module in Python, I feel bash scripting is really unnecessary except in few situations like .bashrc or really quick onliners.

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I don’t think Python and bash solve the same problems at all. I don’t see how they could be seen as comparable, much less interchangeable.

If you're doing any filesystem based manipulation, then it's probably easier to use the shell and tradition Unix utilities. If you're manipulating files, the sort of thing where awk and sed start becoming important (particularly complex manipulations with awk and sed), you're probably better off with Python. Those use cases are pretty much why languages like Perl and Python came to be.

But even more powerful when working together....

> How much of these is really still relevant

All of it? A very small chunk of these slides are even about bash scripts. Most of it is about standard unix commands and pipe and redirection operators.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

And did you read the slides? It's not about bash scripting, it's about using the command line competently and proficiently.

Python is not suitable for that at all.

That was what Perl was created for, but pretty much failed.

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