11.4. Don t Use bash

11.4. Don't Use bash

Sometimes you might start writing a script and after several hours of work find that you've created a monster with many hundreds of lines of complicated code. This is not always a bad thing, but it is a good idea to always be thinking about whether the job could be done in a better way.

Usually the choice of programming language should take place at the design stage. If you are starting from scratch on a Unix system you will have many options, including C and C++, perl, python, and a host of others. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, and no one language will be the best solution for every problem.

If you find that your script has a huge amount of processing to do quickly or if the script requires mathematical capabilities beyond simple integer arithmetic, it might be worthwhile considering C or C++ for the job. If you are looking for better portability across systems, python or perl might be a better match to the task.

However, even if bash is not suitable in the final solution to a problem, you might find it makes an excellent language for mocking up your solution and trying out various options.