I actually came from learned Perl before I learned Awk, and the reason I switched is because Awk is a much smaller language, so I can keep it all in my head. I

I actually came from learned Perl before I learned Awk, and the reason I switched is because Awk is a much smaller language, so I can keep it all in my head. I just about never have to refer to the man page. I also found that I can go for months without writing any Awk and then knock out a quick script without having to relearn anything. I'll concede that there are things for which Awk just isn't powerful enough and perhaps I was never that good with Perl to begin with, so if you're already well versed in Perl YMMV