Using syscalls from perl to shell..
From a point of view of getting things done, do it.

If you're developing software for release and installating in multiple machines over which you have no control- there's a few things you gotta do extra in your software. Like, checking that the stuff exists, etc.

Perl, CPAN, will check great for perl module dependencies. But it's little bit harder for system applications. Purely perl speaking.

The things I pointed out, it's not that you should never do it. It's about picking your battles.
A system to properly do this, without corrupting data, etc is harder than it sounds.

There's a difference between something that *looks* like it works, and something that does.

And then, being on posix, that's part of what the whole thing is about, you use all these things together. Perl, bash, c, whatever.

You can manipulate files and set permissions fine with perl. Fletch was cracking a joke. Perl is the answer to the question.