i'm scripting (as much as possible) a MOSS 2007 environment migration. i'm able to get most of it done using a batch file of STSADM commands, however, i'm unable to find an STSADM command to create a web application. Does one exist?
PowerShell may be a good alternative. I believe it will replace stsadm in the next version of SharePoint. Here's a good blog post with several PowerShell for SharePoint links: http://masteringsharepoint.com/blogs/bobmixon/archive/2008/08/15/powershell-and-sharepoint.aspx.