# IT programmer types: What do you use for quick utilities? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689 "2009-12-10T03:37:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Livardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/43a26b/32.png) [@Livardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Livardo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/1 "2009-12-10T03:37:01Z")
If you’re like me, you have to compile reports, figure out how many files contain the word “babaloo”, etc… What do you use to figure out these quick hits? Do you just do the task manually, or do you figure you could/would/should write a utility with X language / script ? I find myself using Javascirpt a lot for these quick hits. Sure, I can’t use it for file operations (outside of the web sandbox anyways) but I find it works a lot of the time. What are your experiences? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/2 "2009-12-10T05:56:22Z")
I work on Solaris, so I’ve got plenty of handy Unix commands to do that kind of thing. If it is too complicated, I can whip up a quick awk or Perl script to do it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/3 "2009-12-10T07:23:20Z")
What **Voyager** said (only Ubuntu rather than Solaris, and I mostly use bash not awk) ---
**Author:** ![sharding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@sharding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sharding)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/4 "2009-12-10T07:31:09Z")
Same. bash, awk, sed, sort, etc. for really quick and dirty stuff. Python or Perl (mostly Python these days) if it gets more involved. ---
**Author:** ![Erasmus\_Darwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@Erasmus\_Darwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erasmus_Darwin)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/5 "2009-12-10T15:26:58Z")
Perl. If it’s short, perl on the command-line (sometimes with some piping through some combination of sort, uniq, fgrep, or wc even though those bits can be handled in Perl). I can’t remember the last time I used sed once I got comfortable with perl’s command-line shortcuts. If it’s long, a proper perl script. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/6 "2009-12-10T15:51:36Z")
I have a big directory full of utility programs, dating back to DOS days. To find files containing a particular string I’d use the old Norton Utilities ts.exe (Text Search). For quick-and-dirty text programs I’d use QuickBasic. Yep. Don’t laugh, I know it inside out and can knock out a quick program in a couple minutes. It used to be slow but on modern processors it performs just fine. ---
**Author:** ![lexi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lexi/32/6806_2.png) [@lexi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lexi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/7 "2009-12-10T21:15:54Z")
Perl - quick & dirty perl, and also stupid \*nix tricks, like find, grep, wc, cut, sort. ---
**Author:** ![runcible\_spoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/8 "2009-12-12T19:55:04Z")
Python. I’m doing it right now, to sort through the OpenStreetMaps data for San Francisco. If it’s short, or a one-off, I’ll just do it entirely in the interpreter. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/9 "2009-12-14T07:37:28Z")
IEBGENER (IEFBR14 won’t open files)… What? ---
**Author:** ![kombatminipig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5ac83/32.png) [@kombatminipig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kombatminipig)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/10 "2009-12-14T07:58:53Z")
What they said. But on OSX. And using Ruby. ---
**Author:** ![J-P\_L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/j-p_l/32/3156_2.png) [@J-P\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J-P_L)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/11 "2009-12-14T21:59:23Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > IEBGENER (IEFBR14 won’t open files)… > > What? I wonder how many dopers actually know what this refers to. We may be a dying group. ---
**Author:** ![ejtx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b77776/32.png) [@ejtx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ejtx)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/12 "2009-12-15T00:13:17Z")
> [@kombatminipig](#): > > What they said. But on OSX. And using Ruby. Hey, I’ve been wondering, how good are Apple’s built in tools? AppleScript looks cool and the Automator thing looks really slick. I’ve only played with them a little bit at Best Buy, though. Not that I know what the hell I’d do with them. Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/13 "2009-12-15T15:19:46Z")
Python! I work on multiple platforms and python seems a like a good fit most of such tasks. Edit: Ooh, i forgot Textpad, I have tons of macros to do stuff that I usually do. Delete alternate lines Search for words in a directory like grep etc ---
**Author:** ![kombatminipig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5ac83/32.png) [@kombatminipig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kombatminipig)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-programmer-types-what-do-you-use-for-quick-utilities/520689/14 "2009-12-16T11:18:28Z")
> [@ejtx](#): > > Hey, I’ve been wondering, how good are Apple’s built in tools? AppleScript looks cool and the Automator thing looks really slick. I’ve only played with them a little bit at Best Buy, though. > > Not that I know what the hell I’d do with them. Just curious. I have no idea, to be honest. ^^ Never bothered trying them, but I’m sure they’re neat.