New Zealand (South Island)
Seth Kenlon is a UNIX geek, free culture advocate, independent multimedia artist, and D&D nerd. He has worked in the film and computing industry, often at the same time. He is one of the maintainers of the Slackware-based multimedia production project Slackermedia.
Authored Comments
Jason's use of Python to invoke FFmpeg demonstrates the flexibility of Python. I don't see how providing that code in BASH would have demonstrated anything except that ffmpeg exists and can be used from a shell (which is its default).
Learning Python for the creative apps is significantly better than learning BASH for the same purpose. I use both, but realistically Python makes sense, as nearly any creative application - open source or otherwise - that allows scripting offers (at least) Python hooks. Heck, even MEL has pretty much given way to Python - meaning Python somehow managed to overcome the dreaded NIH syndrome of a closed source company; no small feat.
I also feel there's less of a ceiling to Python; you can start by scripting it, and then end up writing a video editor. With BASH, you might write some amazing utilities, but you're probably not going to script applications or write a stand-alone creative application with it.
I don't think that promoting Python means slandering BASH. They're both open source, there's room for each in a workflow, they're both completely cross-platform (although BASH on Windows presumably suffers from the lack of POSIX compliance), and they're both great languages.
100% agree. I didn't even want to learn to code when I got into Linux, I just wanted a more efficient operating environment. The more I learned about BASH and Python, though, the more efficient my workflow became. Now I'm amazed at how nobody in art school ever even mentioned the potential of a little bit of tech know-how. Live and learn, I reckon.