Agreed -- I use awk all the time in shell pipeline.
> I don't get the Perl hate.
The problem is not with writing Perl -- I don't mind using Perl to write scripts and tools. In fact, I like it better than Python for writing glue code.
Reading Perl code -- especially if the code base is old and has been worked upon by multiple people -- now that is a real pain. Don't get me wrong, I have seen some really well written Perl code and have had the good fortune of working with some really smart Perl programmers. But the majority of Perl code I have encountered has been unreadable mess that makes me want to pull my hair out. There are times when I feel it is more productive to rewrite the code in Python than to spend time on the existing code.
> If you follow clean code principles Perl is fine.
Agreed -- except most Perl coders don't. Worse, they make a large chunk of people who contributed to CPAN -- something which was one of the major reasons behind the popularity of Perl.
> Use the tool that fits the job. I have no loyalties to any programming language.
Couldn't agree more.