Re:The first rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t tell anyone you’...
by kqr on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:37PM
(#33334508)
I don't find it preposterous at all.
Yes, I would consider awk and sh lingua francae (?) alongside Perl – but in slightly different contexts, namely low-complexity jobs.
I find Perl slightly more suitable once things get a little complicated, mainly because it's footgun:power ratio is better than awk (few footguns, but also very low power) and sh (many footguns, not that powerful).
I have come across plenty of boxen where bc was not installed, so I don't put that in that bucket.
And yes, if I want to describe text changes in a highly portable way, I will use sed (or ed, depending on context) rather than, say, unified diffs. I could accept an argument that unified diffs are also a lingua franca for more complicated changes, but they are harder to write.
Yes, I would consider awk and sh lingua francae (?) alongside Perl – but in slightly different contexts, namely low-complexity jobs.
I find Perl slightly more suitable once things get a little complicated, mainly because it's footgun:power ratio is better than awk (few footguns, but also very low power) and sh (many footguns, not that powerful).
I have come across plenty of boxen where bc was not installed, so I don't put that in that bucket.
And yes, if I want to describe text changes in a highly portable way, I will use sed (or ed, depending on context) rather than, say, unified diffs. I could accept an argument that unified diffs are also a lingua franca for more complicated changes, but they are harder to write.