> [...] but they're just scripts he has on his system. Personally I'd prefer to use the ubiquitous commands that work everywhere than rely on having custom scripts on my system [...]

Is okay for one to have their own tools.

  $ f() { printf "\$%s" "$1"; }
  $ echo a b c | awk '{ print $(f 2) }'

His system is not very different from mine or yours. He just chose to combine the tools in a specific way.