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Using Python for Scripting

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Re: Using Python for Scripting

#31

Post by DonHopkins »

_jzlw wrote: post #3

How do you handle packages? I want scripts to a be a single file with a shebang, not a repo with a requirements.txt that I need to run in a venv. To me, this is the biggest blocker to using Python for any non-trivial scripting (which is precisely the kind where I wouldn't want to use bash), but I'd like to know how others deal with it. C# scripts let you reference packages in a comment at the top of the file, for exa…

Isn't the fact that bash doesn't have a wonderful ecosystem of reusable modules a much more enormous insurmountable problem than the fact that you have to install python modules? You're really missing the forest for the trees.

Not only does bash not have a module system like python, or a vast ecosystem of modules like python, but also that it's much too weak and brittle a language to implement most of those modules that Python has, and can't even call native code libraries directly.

Even with just its standard built in "batteries included" libraries and no extension modules or native code modules, Python is still much more powerful than bash and easier to code and maintain.

If you're complaining about having to install Python modules, you're usually already doing something that's impossible or incredibly difficult to do in bash anyway.

Even something as simple and essential as fetching files via http or parsing json. Bash has to call out to other programs to do that, but you have to install those programs too, and while Python can certainly call out to curl or wget or jq, it doesn't have to, since it has all that and more built in.

There really is no comparison, because bash loses along so many dimensions at once compared to Python.

Re: Using Python for Scripting

#32

Post by DonHopkins »

dizhn wrote: post #21
jollyllama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. To return to GP's point, what can you do in bash that you can't do in Python? Said in another way, what does bash offer that you would need to tackle with a dependency in Python? My understanding is that there is no such thing, and accordingly, you can still end up with something that is better than bash if you just use Python and call out to other tools with subprocess.

There's bash. Then you need better loops/conditionals and more usable structures. That's when one should think of using a scripting language instead. I think the parent goes too far after that and what he's talking about is not something bash can do (well). That said, a lot of very complicated things are actually written in bash. Distrobox I think is for example.

>That said, a lot of very complicated things are actually written in bash. Distrobox I think is for example.

They're only complicated BECAUSE they're written in bash. If they were written in Python they would be much less complicated, more modular, able to use many existing industrial strength well tested python modules instead of rolling their own ad-hoc ones, and much easier to maintain.

Re: Using Python for Scripting

#33

Post by mackeye »

tayo42 wrote: post #18

Pretty much anything longer then a throwaway one liner I write in python. Would be cool if python had a pipe operator though. The back ticks in ruby is pretty ergonomic too. Wish python had a simpler way to run commands. Kind of tedious to look up subprocess run arguments and also break things up into arrays.

nushell (https://www.nushell.sh/) is essentially perfect for this use case! i use it rather than posix(y) shells for most projects where id normally reach for python.

Re: Using Python for Scripting

#34

Post by paulddraper »

fridder wrote: post #30
paulddraper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you handle packages? The same way you handle them with bash? Install them? What are we talking about here?

I think it is the fact that python packaging has been problematic for some time. setuptools/easy_install, pip/pipx, poetry, conda, uv all promise they will be the thing that "fixes" it

What does Bash use for its packaging?

Use that.

Re: Using Python for Scripting

#36

Post by bccdee »

paulddraper wrote: post #34
fridder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is the fact that python packaging has been problematic for some time. setuptools/easy_install, pip/pipx, poetry, conda, uv all promise they will be the thing that "fixes" it

What does Bash use for its packaging? Use that.

Ok tbh bash uses the system package manager to install command-line utilities, and using the system package manager for python packages HAS been tried, and the parallel use of system packaging and independent package managers is part of why python package distribution is such a mess.

Re: Using Python for Scripting

#37

Post by bccdee »

rjmill wrote: post #17

Odd, I don't see any mention of subprocess.run, the workhorse of python scripting. Quick rundown for the unfamiliar: Give it a command as a list of strings (e.g., subprocess.run(["echo", "foo"]).) It takes a bunch of flags, but the most useful (but not immediately obvious) ones are: check=True: Raise an error if the command fails capture_output=True: Captures stdout/stderr on the CompletedProcess text=True: Automatic…

Also `asyncio.subprocess`, which lets you manage multiple concurrently running commands. Very handy if you need to orchestrate several commands together.

Re: Using Python for Scripting

#38

Post by archargelod »

If a script is simple - I use posix sh + awk, sed, etc.

But if a script I write needs to use arrays, sets, hashtable or processes many files - I use Nim[0]. It's a compiled systems-programming language that feels like a scripting language:

- Nim is easy to write and reads almost like a pseudocode.

- Nim is very portable language, runs almost anywhere C can run (both compiler and programs).

- `nim r script.nim` to compile and run (cached on subsequent runs) or use a shebang `#!/bin/env -S nim r`

- Nim programs are fast to compile (use debug mode and tcc compiler for almost instant compile times)

- Nim scripts run very fast - good chances you don't need external dependencies, because stdlib is batteries included and full of goodies.

- if you need external deps - just statically link them and distribute a cross-compiled binary (use zigcc[1] for easy Nim cross-compilation).

[0] - https://nim-lang.org

[1] - https://github.com/enthus1ast/zigcc

Re: Using Python for Scripting

#40

Post by kazinator » 

  cp version.template build/version.txt

  sed -i "s/@VERSION@/${COMMIT_TAG:-dev}/" build/version.txt
  sed -i "s/@BUILD_DATE@/${BUILD_DATE}/" build/version.txt
Eww! Mutating a file in place, and needing a GNU extension for it.

   sed \
     -e "s/@VERSION@/${COMMIT_TAG:-dev}/" \
     -e "s/@BUILD_DATE@/${BUILD_DATE}/" \
      build/version.txt
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