[python-win32] Python as scripting glue, WAS Python for sysadmin

[Tim Roberts]

Bokverket wrote:
> Bob wrote:
>   
>> IOW, making Python for Windows what AWK was for DOS :-)
>>     
> I'm confused. http://www.vectorsite.net/tsawk.html states "The Awk
> text-processing programming language is a useful and simple tool for
> manipulating text". I don't see anything like "access for example
> Outlook Express address lists, Word, ..."
> -- They are zillions of years in the history of computing apart, i.e. almost
> 40 :-)
>   

??? Windows and awk are only 10 years apart, and Word only about 5 years
after that.

> Some people think that Python owes something to AWK, though, for instance it
> had associative arrays already from its outset. Quite advanced for its time.
>   

Perl is a rather direct descendent of awk.  In the early days, Perl
could actually run many awk scripts virtually unchanged.  However, the
connection from awk to Python is much more oblique.  For example, Snobol
had associative arrays long before awk was developed.

> You are definitely right about it being very pipe-oriented; I did not think
> of it in that way. The analogy was just that awk became widely use as a
> scripting language.

Yes, but not on DOS or on Windows.  No PC version of awk ever included
COM support.

> Windows was unheard of when it was developed, in fact
> it even predates PC-DOS, so Bill Gates had not even started on his learning
> curve.

Well, the Microsoft Corporation pre-dates awk, so Bill was certainly on
his way to total world domination by then...

-- 
Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.