Date: 19 Jan 2002 22:11:00 +0000 From: Wayne Pascoe <wayne@penguinpowered.org.uk> To: rene@xs4all.nl Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: what is a good language for system administration? Message-ID: <m2n0za800b.fsf@set.home.penguinpowered.org.uk> In-Reply-To: <20020119205810.B17795@xs4all.nl> References: <20020119205810.B17795@xs4all.nl>
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rene@xs4all.nl writes:
> * checking if a remote host is up
> * pumping files & RAM data through external tools
> * calling scripts written in the same language on a remote machine, to
> 'pickup' data that was pumped to that machine by a local script.
Perl was written with sysadmin work in mind. That was the original
purpose behind it. It is portable to every Unix I've ever had my hands
on, and runs on windows.
One of the things that makes perl REALLY useful is CPAN. There are
thousands of modules available for easy installation that you can just
use. This means that most of the tasks you want to do, you merely have
to implement someone else's module.
I would generally advise against PHP for a sysadmin language for a
couple of reasons. It was written with the web in mind, and it works
passably well for this.
The biggest problem with PHP is that often a new release will break
older things. Stuff like the XML parsers change within minor
releases. If you _have_ to upgrade to a new version of PHP because the
old one contained local or remote root exploits (and this has happened
in the past), suddenly a large chunk of your code doesn't work. This
is unacceptable within minor version releases of software IMHO.
Go perl. You won't be sorry.
--
- Wayne Pascoe
| Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
wayne@penguinpowered.org.uk | Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
http://www.penguinpowered.org.uk | - Yeats
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