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cdist-mirror/docs/web/cdist/why.mdwn

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[[!meta title="Why should I use cdist?"]]
There are several motivations to use cdist, these
are probably the most popular ones.
## Known language
Cdist is being configured in
[shell script](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_script).
Shell script is used by UNIX system engineers for decades.
So when cdist is introduced, your staff does not need to learn a new
[DSL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_language)
or programming language.
## Powerful language
Not only is shell scripting widely known by system engineers,
but it is also a very powerful language. Here are some features
which make daily work easy:
* Configuration can react dynamicly on explored values
* High level string manipulation (using sed, awk, grep)
* Conditional support (**if, case**)
* Loop support (**for, while**)
* Support for dependencies between cdist types
## More than shell scripting
If you compare regular shell scripting with cdist, there is one major
difference: When using cdist types,
the results are
[idempotent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence).
In practise, that means it does not matter in which order you
call cdist types, the result is always the same.
[[!tag cdist unix]]