I'm not a coder and awk was my first more serious or more complete effort to learn a programming language. What I did notice afterwards was that the syntax and

I'm not a coder and awk was my first more serious or more complete effort to learn a programming language. What I did notice afterwards was that the syntax and semantics of C also became a lot more clearer to me. I think Kernighan also stated somewhere that awk was (also) designed as a helper-tool to learn C. All in all, I think it's a great first language, even if you're initially more compelled by Lisp family languages. If you have time to learn only one language, then awk is not a bad choice; It'll open many doors in the Unix/KISS-world. I can also state that "The Awk programming language" is, among other things, an excellent introduction to computer science or "the way programmers think" in general. A remarkably well written book for general audience.