Linux › Section K · Shell scripts › Topic K.8
When (not) to use shell scripts
Knowing a tool includes knowing its limits. Shell scripts are superb glue for running programs and handling files, but some jobs make them slow, fragile and hard to read, and recognising those jobs early saves hours of debugging.
In this topic
- What the shell does best
- Warning signs
- Worked example: a CSV file defeats awk
- Worked example: the same job in Python
- The cost of starting processes
- Choosing the alternative
- Configuration management with Ansible
- Idempotence: why Ansible is not just a script
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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