Programming is a critical skill for cybersecurity professionals. Programmers use it to understand attacks and protect digital systems from harm. Mastery of programming languages can help network admins automate their work and boost performance, but which are best to learn? Let's find out!
Bash
Bash is a command language interpreter found on most Linux systems and is an extension of Bourne shell, designed to work with programs written in this style. Bash also incorporates features from other shells like C Shell (csh) and KornShell (ksh). Command-line interfaces like bash offer an efficient and straightforward means of interfacing with systems. Users can create, edit and manage files and directories using them; work simultaneously on multiple file types simultaneously without losing momentum; as well as automate or replicate workflows across operating systems.
GNU is an initiative of free software developed by Richard Stallman that includes bash - the successor to Unix originally named Bourne Shell by Brian Fox who came up with its name due to an accidental pun. While graphical user interfaces tend to be easier for beginners to use, nothing beats the power and flexibility of command lines for complex, repetitive tasks. Therefore, many modern system administrators use bash scripts to automate complex processes; writing and running such scripts is considered essential knowledge among network engineers.
Tcl
Tcl (short for Tk) is an interpreted scripting language that runs across multiple operating systems and is widely used across industries and applications. Tk can quickly create GUIs thanks to integration with its GUI toolkit; additionally it boasts cross-platform support via its API as well as support for Unicode characters.
Tcl provides an efficient method for handling data, such as lists and arrays, along with extensive file manipulation commands that enable sending and receiving network socket connections. Furthermore, using its powerful exec command, Tcl can execute other programs and communicate with them while they run.
Tcl's evaluation mechanism lies at its heart and gives the language its power. It can evaluate any given string of commands and return either their result or indicate any possible errors that occurred. Tcl makes this process easier due to being a textual programming language; everything in Tcl is treated as a string, enabling substitutions. For instance, expr can interpret two as either numbers or characters and length can return its length; to prevent substitutions of multiple-word strings being contained between quotes or curly braces for best results.
Python
Python is an extremely flexible coding language used in numerous fields of computer science. It has become the go-to solution for coders from startup business owners to Redditors alike, as its versatility makes it suitable for creating anything involving data or mathematical computation more efficiently than most other programming languages. Network administrators find Python an ideal choice, as its scripting language makes task automation possible and its libraries provide tools for data visualizations. Plus, its cross-platform compatibility means it can run on Windows, Linux, and Mac computers alike!
System administrators might find it oddly infuriating when career advisors advise them to learn a programming language, but it is an essential skill in cybersecurity. With increased demands placed upon them and less time available, learning coding could save them time and help get jobs completed faster - not to mention it could make changing careers much simpler!
Go
Go is an emerging modern alternative to high-performance server-side languages like C++ and Java, designed for reliability, safety and efficiency. It has an efficient garbage collection system and static typing that help prevent programming errors while offering support for code validation, testing and refactoring tools.
This language's design prioritizes simplicity and its modular nature enables rapid compilation. Furthermore, its standard library is well-defined and fast IO subsystem is also featured. Furthermore, its asynchronous programming model and channels support scalable programs without locking. Tuple patterns offer an efficient method to pass data around while its memory management system protects against memory leaks.
Go is an approachable programming language with fast learning speed and simplicity, which has proven popular with organizations like Openshift and Dropbox. However, the language does have some drawbacks and trade-offs: no full object-oriented features nor generic support is offered by Go; and its file semantics rely heavily on POSIX standards which may cause issues when porting code to Windows systems.
Perl
No single programming language can satisfy every sysadmin's needs, yet some languages make more sense depending on infrastructure, applications, codebases and toolchains. Perl scripting language often meets these criteria well for many sysadmins - in fact it has been called the "duct tape of the Internet" due to its versatility in handling data sets. Perl is a text processing language first created by Larry Wall in 1987, borrowing features from Shell scripting and C programming languages. Due to its flexible syntax, Perl makes an ideal language for handling text-intensive tasks like parsing log files, editing settings files and creating reports.
Perl interpreter supports a loosely-typed system, meaning variables don't need to be explicitly declared as such. Instead, its interpreter tries to recognize each variable's data type based on context and allocates or frees memory accordingly; therefore Perl scripts tend to use far less memory than C programs for similar tasks - making them suitable for network monitoring/scripting and Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs alike.