what makes perl better for scripts? Having an implicit line- and field-splitting loop for standard input with a couple of command-line switches. (Awk doesn't e

what makes perl better for scripts? Having an implicit line- and field-splitting loop for standard input with a couple of command-line switches. (Awk doesn't even need switches, but is cumbersome if you need initial state.) This covers a lot of use-cases. Also, very compact and powerful regular expressions.