Quote:
Originally Posted by
wisecracker
1) Is the Python language now considered a part of the *NIX transient command structure much like Perl, (and awk)?
This question sounds like "are cars usually red"? There are without a doubt a lot of red cars, but this means nothing if you what to know if
this specific car is red or not. What you are interested in is, if the software is installed on the specific system you want to run some script on. If some other systems have it or not doesn't matter.
What "UNIX" constitutes is defined in the "Single Unix Specification", the "POSIX" specification and similar documents. Today a UNIX system is not required to use some specific (AT&T-) code, but to react in a (thusly) specified way. "awk" is part of this specification, "perl" is not. And neither is "python". If you want to write portable scripts you should consider using the POSIX shell (which resembles mostly the ksh88).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
wisecracker
2) If so which OSes now have it as part of a "default" install - NOT an extra to be downloaded from repositories at a later date.
The system i use most - AIX - definitely doesn't have it in the default install and for AIX - as well as any other systems i use - the term "default install" is meaningless. When i install a production system i use a carefully crafted absolute-minimum-image ("golden image") and install of this what is needed. What can be expected because of the POSIX specification is there (all tools listed as "mandatory"), but not more. Everything installed will have to be maintained, can break, etc. and if you have thousands of systems in a data center (quite the common case) you want to keep the things which can break at an absolute minimum.
I hope this helps.
bakunin