From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 26 08:20:38 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37C5637B405 for ; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 08:20:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from haggis.it.ca (haggis.it.ca [216.126.86.9]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8098A43F93 for ; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 08:20:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from paul@haggis.it.ca) Received: from haggis.it.ca (paul@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by haggis.it.ca (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h5QFKYEL055795; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 11:20:34 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from paul@haggis.it.ca) Received: (from paul@localhost) by haggis.it.ca (8.12.9/8.12.6/Submit) id h5QFKYrK055794; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 11:20:34 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from paul) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 11:20:34 -0400 From: Paul Chvostek To: Peter McGarvey Message-ID: <20030626152034.GA38756@mail.it.ca> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20030625214311.00e5e240@localhost> <20030626010357.J508@hub.org> <20030626110336.GW34365@iconoplex.co.uk> <20030626113553.GA53078@packet.org.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030626113553.GA53078@packet.org.uk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RMS says: "Use BSD, for goodness sake!" X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 15:20:38 -0000 On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 12:35:53PM +0100, Peter McGarvey wrote: > > Does anyone actually USE awk? > > Other than to filter columns that is. Unless it's absolutely vital to use something else, yes. Awk has been around forever, and behaves in a more predictable and consistent fashion even than perl (due at least in part to the smaller toolset it offers). http://www.it.ca/software/pmlw is an example of something that goes beyond just filtering columns. I've written many things over the years that were perfectly acceptable in awk even though they would have been equally function in perl. My main (though possibly obsolete) reason: # uname -sr FreeBSD 4.8-RC # ls -l /usr/bin/awk /usr/lib/libperl.so.3 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 160368 May 15 15:39 /usr/bin/awk -r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 661096 May 15 15:40 /usr/lib/libperl.so.3 -- Paul Chvostek Operations / Abuse / Whatever it.canada, hosting and development http://www.it.ca/