Shell Scripts v. Command Options (was: Re: small bug in who(1) of SVR3)

[Henry Spencer]

In article <1396:Jan1811:54:2091 at kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd at kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>> ... a sense of perspective is needed.  Hacking
>> C code to avoid writing a one-line shell script is a gross waste of time
>> and money unless that program is truly critical to system performance.
>
>That depends on your user community. In general, code that will be
>distributed to thousands of sites should be written efficiently.

Oh, I quite agree.  Please note that I'm co-author of a major piece of
code -- C News -- that is distributed to, and in use at, thousands of
sites.  It relies quite heavily on shell scripts.  The customers are
generally extremely pleased with its performance.

People who claim that shell scripts can't be efficient don't know what
they're talking about.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry at zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry