[Radiance-general] RADIANCE and Unix shells

[Rob Guglielmetti]

Jack de Valpine wrote:

> Hi Kirk,
>
> Depending on what you are trying to do you may want to consider 
> something more robust in terms of programming features such as Perl or 
> Python. I am a huge fan of Perl which is extremely robust. On the 
> other hand I know that Georg Mischler is quite a proponent of Python 
> which is also quite robust.

Starbucks coffee is also known for their robustness, but then again that 
doesn't really help you with programming.  =8-) 

Ahem. 

Kirk, Jack is steering you in the right direction, but I'd also like to 
cast a vote for good old fashioned shell scripting, using either bash or 
tsh.  Some of the radiance commands are actually shell scripts, usually 
written in tsh, which may be a case for learning tsh.  I learned shell 
scripting by dissecting some of the stuff Greg Ward and John Mardaljevic 
wrote, which served me well for many years.  Bash has more features than 
tsh, but then again like Jack said languages like Python and Perl have 
many more than Bash.  It comes down to what you're trying to do, and how 
much you expect to borrow from other sources too. 

Also, regarding Perl: Jack's a Perl fan because he knows it well.  But 
I'd caution that Perl can be a bear when working with Other People's 
Code, because it is so "loose".  There is a saying among Perl People 
that goes "There's more than one way to do it", which can be an obstacle 
when trying to read someone else's programs (which is how I learned 
programming in the first place).  I grow fonder of Python all the time.

Whatever way you go, have fun!  Scripting is the key to unlocking the 
power of Radiance.

- Rob Guglielmetti