> I've always thought that AWK's most important feature is its self limiting nature I agree. This idea doesn't receive enough attention. If you pick your const

> I've always thought that AWK's most important feature is its self limiting nature I agree. This idea doesn't receive enough attention. If you pick your constraints you can make a particular envelope of uses easy and ones you don't care about hard. AWK's choice to be a per line processor, with optional sections for processing before all lines and after all lines is self-limiting but it defines a useful envelope of use.