A tool for Python - request for some advice

[TPJ]

> (...) I've seen the claim that every Linux
> distro comes with Python installed, but can't verify it.

So have I. And I think it might be truth. The only problem is that
different distros might be released with different versions of Python.

<snip>

> Then again, the same comments apply to bash. Distributions that have
> their roots in AT&T Unix probably don't come with bash by default,
> with Mac OS X being an exception. This makes depending on bash a bad
> idea if you want to write a script that portable across Unix distros.

Good to know. So my script written in bash will be primary targeted for
Linux distros. OK, I can live with that.

> If your target platform is Linux, indications are that python is as
> portable as bash.

I've thought about it for a few days and I disagree with you. Python
isn't as portable as bash because of one reason. The problem is that
development of Python is much more dynamic than development of bash. If
I wrote my script in Python it would be possible that this script
wouldn't run on the same distro with _different_ version of Python.

(This is problem because someone has sugested that he'd like to run
this script on RH 9. So older distros must be considered as well as
newer.)

As long as I'm using bash, I'll deal with a tool that has the same
features on different distros (well... _almost_ the same features)

(This is about portability, of course. There are also another
advantages of using bash.)

> If your target platform is Unix, then the same is true - except you
> shouldn't be writing bash if you want portability.

Well, my primary goal is Linux. I'm working on Linux and I have no
access to any *BSD system (or another flavour of Unix). I thought that
bash scripts are portable, but now I can see I was wrong.

Thanks for all your help.