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"In all the decades of programming, I've yet to run into a problem which could only be solved in Perl because it couldn't be done in AWK." Have you ever ponder

"In all the decades of programming, I've yet to run into a problem which could only be solved in Perl because it couldn't be done in AWK." Have you ever pondered the number of projects that, in addition to sh, make and common base utilities, require perl during compilation where awk could have sufficed? As a single example, have you looked at compiling openssl without perl, using awk instead? Whenever I see a perl prerequisite I question whether it is truly a requirement or whether other base utilities1 such as awk could replace it. Assuming it could be removed, how much effort is one willing to expend in order to extinguish a perl dependency? 1. Some OS projects like OpenBSD make perl a base utility.

Annatar 8y ago
The illumos project undertook a massive effort to eradicate any and all dependencies on Perl (which had also been made part of the core operating system decades prior, by themselves no less). While they're still at it, they have managed to rip out most of it and replace it with binary executables in C or shell. Yes, writing a build engine in AWK would be perfectly doable, but the right tool for that job is Make.
- kamaal 8y ago
  That's easy to do. But that's not the end of it. The whole point of Perl is avoid a salad of C and shell utils. Also in many cases the moment you have to deal with >2 files at a time shell utilities begin to show their limits. The resulting code is often far more unreadable than anything you will ever write in Perl.
  - Annatar 8y ago
    I’m sorry you believe that, but it’s simply not true, especially since UNIX is designed to be driven by a combination of binary code and shell executables. Perl is a mess whose syntax borders on hieroglyphic once poured into software. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a capable language; but it’s not a language in which written programs are maintainable or easily debuggable.

Annatar 8y ago

The illumos project undertook a massive effort to eradicate any and all dependencies on Perl (which had also been made part of the core operating system decades prior, by themselves no less). While they're still at it, they have managed to rip out most of it and replace it with binary executables in C or shell. Yes, writing a build engine in AWK would be perfectly doable, but the right tool for that job is Make.

kamaal 8y ago
That's easy to do. But that's not the end of it. The whole point of Perl is avoid a salad of C and shell utils. Also in many cases the moment you have to deal with >2 files at a time shell utilities begin to show their limits. The resulting code is often far more unreadable than anything you will ever write in Perl.
- Annatar 8y ago
  I’m sorry you believe that, but it’s simply not true, especially since UNIX is designed to be driven by a combination of binary code and shell executables. Perl is a mess whose syntax borders on hieroglyphic once poured into software. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a capable language; but it’s not a language in which written programs are maintainable or easily debuggable.