The Devils in the Details

From an article called Faster Python grabs programmers:
The new version of Python includes a new module that allows system administrators to use small Python programs instead of shell scripts, said Michael McLay, a consultant who is the resident Python expert for the nonprofit Center of Open Source and Government. Shell scripts, written to execute routine system administration tasks, have more security vulnerabilities and offer less feedback when errors occur, McLay said.

I’m pretty familiar with dynamic scripting languages and even I had to scratch my head at that one. My assumption (probably wrong) is that the new Python has some kind of compiling module included but in order to even make that leap you have to have enough experience with non-techs writing tech articles to understand what they think the difference between a program and a shell script is. If they assume you have enough knowledge to find the difference then why not spend another sentence and actually tell you some of the ‘how’ and not just the ‘what’. I’m not a supporter of dumbing down news and reporting but a little but can we have some useful context please!

While I can understand not wanting to bog down the average reader in technical details it’d be nice if they provided enough information to aid in a Google search…