Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!n8emr!uncle!basho!john
From: john@basho.uucp (John Lacey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: using awk with records that have over 100 fields
Keywords: awk
Message-ID: <1991Jan7.053533.19287@basho.uucp>
Date: 7 Jan 91 05:35:33 GMT
References: <1560@manta.NOSC.MIL> <1990Dec31.200723.7929@convex.com> <1991Jan1.190259.868@csn.org> <1991Jan02.133911.24428@convex.com> <1991Jan03.212009.211@am.sublink.org>
Organization: Sportsware
Lines: 17

alex@am.sublink.org (Alex Martelli) writes:

>I know I don't speak for all Unix-lovers, but I wouldn't use awk, ksh,
>icon, and so on, so willingly, if each did not have a good-to-great
>book about it.  Great-to-good books ain't all (I *do* use dmake, and
>*don't* use ratfor, for example...) - but they surely DO help!

Ditto here.  In fact, I find that when a program comes with _any_
documentation, it is better than programs that come with none.  And
better documentation seems to be a good indicator of a better program.
These are generalizations, of course, broken from time to time.  My
favorite examples are TeX (ahh, bliss) and AWK.  The best
counter-example I know is Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, which has
well above average documentation ....
-- 
John Lacey         614 436 3773         73730,2250
john@basho.uucp  or  basho!john@cis.ohio-state.edu