Hacker News Reader

Learn AWK. It's tremendously simpler than Perl, and even more omnipresent. In a week or two of study and tinkering you'll be an expert.

View on HN

Awk is too specialized, specific. Perl is amazing at text processing AND also amazing at much more. The basics of perl for basic awk-like functionality is really not much to learn. Skip awk and learn something more useful.

This works because perl is layered. To do even fairly elaborate awk-like text processing you only need to learn a little perl. Nothing like all of perl. To do the rest (of elaborate text processing), you learn a little more. In the end, most likely you never need to learn all of perl. But it's there to add to your toolbox as needed as you go.

awk is purpose-built, lightweight, and perfect for line-oriented tasks. Perl can do everything awk does and much more, but that power comes with complexity. If you just need text processing, awk is simpler and sufficient. If you need more than text processing, consider modern alternatives like Python that are easier to maintain and collaborate with.

I've used awk for a lot of weird shit over the last ~30 years and while I agree it's much more straightforward and convenient than Perl for most simple tasks, "expert in a week or two" is no.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com