# How does Julia compare to shell scripting using bash and its "friends" like bc on a Linux system?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-does-julia-compare-to-shell-scripting-using-bash-and-its-friends-like-bc-on-a-linux-system/115775>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [June 17, 2024, 7:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-does-julia-compare-to-shell-scripting-using-bash-and-its-friends-like-bc-on-a-linux-system/115775 "2024-06-17T19:52:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 28

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 4:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-does-julia-compare-to-shell-scripting-using-bash-and-its-friends-like-bc-on-a-linux-system/115775/28 "2024-06-19T16:34:20Z")

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> [@oOosys](#):
>
> Is this a way way to prevent getting interesting answers which might show clear advantage of using command line tools which arrive at results faster than Julia?

Your example here, which is mostly measuring the overhead of spawning `julia` for individual small calculations, has already been extensively discussed in another thread: [Python big integer vs. Julia big integer arithmetic - #24 by stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/python-big-integer-vs-julia-big-integer-arithmetic/115777/24)

Thread timers are there to avoid wasting everyone’s else’s time on repetitive discussions (such as you repeatedly posting similar benchmarks and forcing people to give the same answers over and over) or meandering unfocused threads (e.g. generalized discussions about reasons for relative popularity of programming languages, which we’ve had over and over on this forum).

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