[czynskee]

If you find awk unreadable, maybe check out this link? https://ferd.ca/awk-in-20-minutes.html

I actually find awk very readable. It's a far simpler language than Python really.

The exception is perhaps if you need to do something complex, like parse a csv.

[munificent]

> It's a far simpler language than Python really.

This is true, but if you already know Python, then "awk + Python" has greater total complexity than "just Python". So the question is does awk add enough value to be worth the incremental cost of learning it in addition to Python? I think for many, the answer is "no".

[busterarm]

Honestly I think if someone finds awk unreadable, they're probably cutting corners elsewhere and probably shouldn't be doing unix systems programming.

It's like all of the bash scripts that we see that don't handle failures and traps or print a usage block.

[rmrfstar]

Out of curiosity, I grepped the Qubes github repos for awk. Here's the most complicated use I could find:

     awk -F : '/\/home/ { print $1":"$3":"$4":"$6 } '