Awk is great for data pipelines, not just oneliners. For a long while I maintained a program that took the compiler output (intermediate form) from one toolcha

Awk is great for data pipelines, not just oneliners. For a long while I maintained a program that took the compiler output (intermediate form) from one toolchain, and converted it to another (intermediate form). Why awk? It was faster, and more readable, than any of the alternatives, whilst being much much shorter.