title: shell script vs. perl for an install script - how ubiquitous is perl?
body: <p>I am wanting to create an install script in the fashion of npm's (<code>curl http://example.com/install.sh | sh</code>) but it leaves me asking the question: can I just write the script in perl?  As far as I know, perl is installed by default on at least ubuntu, RHEL &amp; OS X - so I'm wondering in the year 2011, can I not write shell and still be generic enough for everyone? Is there a third and better option? </p>
  
  <p>This would be targeting a user's development box, not staging or production.  </p>
  
  <p>What I want to do specifically is use this install script to bootstrap a development environment easily without the overhead of creating and maintaining packages.  The script would have 4 steps:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>check and make sure git is installed</li>
  <li>use git to clone a repo to cwd</li>
  <li>pull down and save a perl control script to /usr/bin, make it executable</li>
  <li>add some environment variables (related post: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5656327/linux-cross-distro-environment-variable-modification-via-script">linux cross-distro environment variable modification via script?</a>) </li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>That's it.  My thinking is this is simple and generic enough to use a bootstrap script rather than a package. And my target audience is a user's unix or linux local development system.</p>