i wish to clarify, i did not say its incorrect. With proper consideration and extensive testing of regex for different scenarios, i am sure the sed solution can be better. I merely say its wrong choice. By wrong choice, i meant taking into consideration the nature of the task, its best (and easier) to compare by numbers , and not through crafting regex.

the issue with this quote is: motorcycles of the past are different than today's. Therefore, i don't believe it stands true in this day. True to computing and software technology as well. do you still run software on the 8088??

Of course not. There can be solutions done with different languages, BUT there are simpler solutions than others.

Absolutely!!--if it gets the job done. (Where can I find one?)

This only means that finding something that's OK just requires more effort.

There's another aspect to this: The "best" tool also has to include the user's skill set----if I can do SED from memory, but I have to go looking for the AWK syntax, then SED (for me) is better.

but then you are not only doing it for yourself. In the real world, you communicate with different sources, maybe the clients your business is working with. And with new technology, you simply have to keep up.

why more effort, when you can do it in less than double time.

true, but that's only 1 aspect. There are many more other factors that makes a good tool. clean syntax for readability, the ability to include modules/libraries, good programming data structures, debugging tools..etc etc..