Linked by Eugenia Loli on Fri 14th Sep 2007 23:08 UTC
As a system administrator, you run across numerous challenges and problems. Managing users, disk space, processes, devices, and backups can cause many system administrators to lose their hair, good humor, or sanity. Shell scripts can help, but they often have frustrating limitations. This is where a full-featured scripting language, such as Python, can turn a tedious task into an easy one. Python is a scripting language that looks like it was made for system administrators.
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RE: in some ways, I hate python
by bnolsen on Sat 15th Sep 2007 14:31
in reply to "in some ways, I hate python"
Member since:2006-01-06
RE[2]: in some ways, I hate python
by abraxas on Sat 15th Sep 2007 14:56
in reply to "RE: in some ways, I hate python"
Member since:2005-07-07
gentoo is probably the worst advertisement for python. On anything but a very modern fast machine the portage operations are painfully, painfully slow and IMHO show exactly why scripting languages shouldn't be used too ambitiously for things. They just don't scale well.
I don't think python is the real issue. Portage used to be very fast. Over the years though it has gotten bloated and inefficient. Extending it has been difficult and not without loss of efficiency. It really is time for a rewrite. People seem to be leaning towards a C++ solution but I would rather have Python so we can easily extend it and add new modules.
RE[2]: in some ways, I hate python
by dagw on Sun 16th Sep 2007 13:27
in reply to "RE: in some ways, I hate python"
Member since:2005-07-06
The problems with portage are more due to design than language. If you where to re-write portage in C using exactly the same design, algorithms and architecture it's currently using, it wouldn't be much faster. Conversly I you where to redesign it from the ground up, and still use python, it would be significantly faster.
RE: in some ways, I hate python
by abraxas on Sat 15th Sep 2007 14:52
in reply to "in some ways, I hate python"
Member since:2005-07-07
the first time i ran across python as system scripts was in a fresh gentoo install. it crashed each time i tried to proceed....
You must have had a foobarred installation. I had an issue with python on Gentoo exactly once in the 4 years I have been using Gentoo. Otherwise it is a solid language and other than the slow syncs and slow dependency checking it works fine for portage.
Edited 2007-09-15 14:52
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2007-09-14
the first time i ran across python as system scripts was in a fresh gentoo install. it crashed each time i tried to proceed....