[[!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]]