Perl is widely known as a write once read never language for a reason. In that sense I'll grant you awk is no better, but if you are stepping into scripting land you may as well use something generally readable (e.g. python, or just use bash).
I am X-er whose first experience with Perl was working in enterprise software tech support in 1999 and diagnosing a crash due to a syntax that had somehow shipped in the install script for a GA product with a ~$100K annual license/support fee.
While “write once, read never” is hyperbolic, it captures a real issue for Perl compared to many other competitive languages (of which, to be fair, there were far fewer widely supported for the tasks Perl was most often chosen for 20+ years ago.)
That's not to say I don't find some things nice about Perl, and I’d love to be able to spend more time woth Raku which grew out of it.
Perl is widely known as a write once read never language for a reason. In that sense I'll grant you awk is no better, but if you are stepping into scripting land you may as well use something generally readable (e.g. python, or just use bash).