Python is great, but having much "admin" type experience, I've found python to be less than Ideal when dealing with system calls and standard Input Ouput.
For example, I've written complex tools that use perforce, I've taken advantage of both regular IO and the perforce marshalled IO. Under heavy load, some of the threads in my scripts experience IO hang (Linux and WIndows) (solaris and BSD were fine). I did not get the same behavior with Perl. Having said that I still do 99% of my utilities in python. Just be aware. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
