this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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I've been looking around for a scripting language that:

  • has a cli interpreter
  • is a "general purpose" language (yes, awk is touring complete but no way I'm using that except for manipulating text)
  • allows to write in a functional style (ie. it has functions like map, fold, etc and allows to pass functions around as arguments)
  • has a small disk footprint
  • has decent documentation (doesn't need to be great: I can figure out most things, but I don't want to have to look at the interpter source code to do so)
  • has a simple/straightforward setup (ideally, it should be a single executable that I can just copy to a remote system, use to run a script and then delete)

Do you know of something that would fit the bill?


Here's a use case (the one I run into today, but this is a recurring thing for me).

For my homelab I need (well, want) to generate a luhn mod n check digit (it's for my provisioning scripts to generate synchting device ids from their certificates).

I couldn't find ready-made utilities for this and I might actually need might a variation of the "official" algorithm (IIUC syncthing had a bug in their initial implementation and decided to run with it).

I don't have python (or even bash) available in all my systems, and so my goto language for script is usually sh (yes, posix sh), which in all honestly is quite frustrating for manipulating data.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Only 5 years ago, everybody would be singing and shouting "perl".

Nowadays it is python that has taken this position (even though Perl is still there and can do so much more).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

More like

20 years ago - perl

10 years ago - python

Nowadays - go

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Go isn't a scripting language

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Go isn’t a scripting language, and it isn’t a system language either, despite what Wikipedia currently says. To be a system language, a language should support assembly language and shouldn’t require an embedded garbage collector. And if you’re going to make a compiled language anyway, why not make it capable of system work? Go is a platypus that’s popular with devops for some reason—probably Google’s clout in the industry.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The one thing Go does have going for is performance. It compiles and runs pretty fast. It isn't as fast as C but it is very close.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

And it has a pretty excellent stdlib.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Perl is a pain to work with

Python is a lot less pain

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Even after using CPAN ? I found Perl to be much more "manageable" than Python.

Python with Venv and Pip at least works as expected. Which makes it easier.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Python has a clean syntax and is popular. I can't say the same for Perl. Also I'm not sure if Perl is cross platform.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why would you say that Perl “can do so much more” than Python? That assertion sounds indefensible.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

LOL It is one of the most well known things about perl that the language is as mighty as probably no other programming language.

https://en.philosophy.perlzemi.com/blog/20190911130832.html

[–] [email protected] -5 points 2 months ago

Right, so you’ve got nothing to back it up. Sure, 1990s, let’s get you back to bed.