Nah, my rules of thumb are:
* If it's simple and system level, I use #Bash.
* If it's complex and system level, I using #Perl 5.
* If I'm just dictating configuration, it's likely #Ansible.
* If it has an API that doesn't suck, I'm probably using #Python 3.
* If I'm connecting things with no API it's back to Perl 5, likely with #Moo, #Mouse, or #Moose for easier OOP.
Perl has the advantage of being installed *everywhere*. #ModernPerl is much cleaner than 90's Perl.
@profoundlynerdy @codesections
> Perl has the advantage of being installed *everywhere*.
That's an interesting perspective. One of the reasons I wrote #passgen (which is a #bash rewrite of xkpasswd with some added features) was that I was tired of installing #perl for just that one program.
>... I was tired of installing #perl for just that one program.
Interesting. Perl 5 is baked into the Linux Standards Base. Even Enterprise distros like #RHEL ignore parts of it. But, the embedded space and #Alpine based Linux containers not withstanding, you'd be hard pressed to find a Unix-y OS that lacks Perl 5.
You know, now that I think about it, in might not have been perl itself that I needed to add but just installing through CPAN. It was a while ago
You might be right. You had me scratching my head because I have tried Arch within the past year and *thought* it had Perl 5 by default.
Missing CPAN in the default install makes a lot more sense than missing Perl outright.
Who knows. My memory could be off, too.
BTW, what attracted you to Void Linux?
> BTW, what attracted you to Void Linux?
Basically, that I'd really like to be able to understand my computer better. Void seems to do a little bit less automagically and thus helps me learn a bit more (probably not as much as going through a Linux from Scratch install, but I'm not sure I have *that* kind of time at the moment …)
I'm still getting everything set up, but I'll say that I've really liked it so far.
> install gentoo
I've thought about it! This computer is a relatively under-powered laptop that I mainly use to SSH in to my old computer (it has hardware issues but still works via SSH; long story). So #gentoo might not be the best fit.
But my (eventual) plan is to build a desktop to SSH into, and I'm leaning toward Gentoo or #guix for that machine