Mmastodon TechnologySoftware first seen 21 h ago, last 16 h ago, peak #8

Bradley Kuhn says Perl still beats sed and awk for him

Original: @ elricofmelnibone I still use command-line compositions with cat and `[ef]?grep`, but anywhere `sed` or `awk` would go,

Software freedom advocate Bradley Kuhn says he still builds Unix command-line pipelines with cat and grep, but substitutes Perl one-liners wherever sed or awk would traditionally be used. He argues Perl retains at least the value of those classic tools, responding to discussion about the language's reputation and perceived bias against it among developers.

Why now: Ongoing debate among developers about whether Perl remains relevant compared with classic Unix tools and newer scripting languages

Bradley KuhnPerlsedawkgrep

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Evidence

• @ elricofmelnibone I still use command-line compositions with cat and `[ef]?grep`, but anywhere `sed` or `awk` would go, I use `perl -[pn]e` instead. I agree with awk++ analysis of Perl: it remains *at least that*, which is why I believe it has value. Some of the language-bias… · bkuhn@copyleft.org · 7

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