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I am planning of working in system administration field. Initially i was thinking of learning python for script writing.

But in some jobs they need perl as well.

DO i nned to learn perl so that in case i need to edit some already written script

and how much time it can take to get the basics of it

thanks

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    If you're seriously worried about learning a language like perl, you might want to reconsider your career choice. System Admins don't need to master many (any?) programming/scripting languages, but you need to know the basics of most of them.
    – Chris S
    Dec 17, 2010 at 3:59
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    Just how quickly do you think you can learn a programming or scripting language? It may come as a bit of a surprise but it's not something you can do in a few weeks, or even a few months. At least not well enough to fool someone who knows how to test you.
    – John Gardeniers
    Dec 17, 2010 at 4:42

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Perl is the classic UNIX-like administration language. That said, whether you need to learn it depends on the job. I'm seeing that lately a lot of shops are moving away from extensive Perl usage and going to Python & co. ("& co." meaning Ruby, Shell [for quick tasks], etc.).

That said, Perl is very powerful for SA work and there are a lot of libraries that can make your life easier. It's pretty handy.

I'm a 50-year-old Linux SA (used to be a Solaris guy) and manager. Been doing UNIX for 25 years. I always look for programming/scripting skills in my guys as they are invaluable for the job.

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