>>>   Writing something like "grep 'hello.*there' file.txt" doesn't require a
>>> lot of time or thinking.
> 
>> Nor does opening file.txt in a text editor and running a quick search. 
> 
>   It requires a lot more time, especially if you want to do it for more than
> one file. It's you who was talking about "using the right tool".

If you have lots of files to search then yes, I guess you don't want to 
open each one in a text editor just to search it. (Again, not something 
I've ever needed to do.)

>> (Not that I can think of a reason to want to do this in the first place...)
> 
>   You are now being stubborn as a matter of principle. I gave you one example
> and you admitted that the example was sensible, and even gave an alternative
> solution to the same problem (by using a database), and now you are again
> repeating the "I can't think of a reason to do this" nonsense.

I can't think of a reason to search a text file for "hi there". Maybe 
I'm just looking at this too narrowly. As I say, in the kinds of tasks I 
do, I almost never need to search for things. (E.g., I don't run a web 
server.) So maybe that's why it doesn't seem so vital to me.

>>>> Personally I just dislike scripting languages.
>>>   What's the difference between "a scripting language" and "a real language"?
> 
>> Now that is surprisingly hard to pin down. ;-)
> 
>   I think you are simply being prejudiced.

There are languages which are designed for quickly throwing together 
small scripts, and there are languages designed for building large-scale 
applications. There's no sharp dividing line between them, but they 
exist. I tend to prefer the latter; scripting languages tend to be a tad 
messy and ad hoc, and many of them try to be too helpful and end up 
getting in your way. Still, if the task you're trying to perform really 
*is* small, sometimes scripting can be the best way.

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