Library bindings or os.execute?

[Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@...>]

I find, increasingly often, that on my Linux system I no longer bother
looking whether someone has written a library with Lua bindings
for some sophisticated standard library [1]. Instead, I do it with
os.execute.

This sounds quick-and-dirty, but I wonder whether in the long run,
it might not be more portable and require less maintenance.

-- Dirk

[1] For example, suppose I have ripped a CD into a disk image.
There is a huge binary file sitting there that in principle you could
edit, play etc. The `sox` utility seems intent on supporting the tiniest
obscure feature. Sure, reading the manpage for `sox` is hard work,
but reading the documentation for `libsox` is a damn sight harder.
So I write a Lua frontend that simply assembles the command lines
for the editing/playback calls.