4 ms·

In the 2000’s Python was also a sysadmin language. Edit: But I see your point, Google SRE’s around the late 2000’s reached for Python more than Perl.

• lysace 11mo ago
  (90s) Yes, but it developed.
  • calmbonsai 11mo ago
    As someone who lived through that transition, we used Perl extensively to sysadmin ~30 Solaris and Irix workstations and it was superlative at that. At that time, Guido was still working at CNRI locally to us in Reston, VA and we had several discussions at the local Pyggies (Python User Group) on transitioning over to Python for that work. We were a (mostly) C++/Java shop, but Perl fit into all the other "crevices" beautifully. Python just didn't have enough library support for all of our "swiss-army chainsaw" demands. Still, it was very apparent at the time it would eventually get there and I was enamored with its "one right way" of doing things--even at the bytecode level.
• oncallthrow 11mo ago
  I think Perl is still more popular even today than Python as a sysadmin language. Late 2000s it certainly was. Maybe Google was different, but across the industry more widely Python was barely used, Perl was used everywhere.
  • lysace 11mo ago
    My experience: Sysadmin-driven companies (typically Sun-based) often used Perl. Developer-driven companies used other languages running on cheaper X86 Linux.