Replacing AWK with Python in GCC?

Actually, it isn't different at all.

If you let the engineers do things properly, it's a simple job. If you let people with no clue (like the beancounters and marketeers) interfere, then things get messy.

Sadly, it's usually the beancounters and marketeers that hold the purse-strings, so it gets done their way or - more usually - not at all (meanwhile promising customers "it's coming - it really is - it'll be here real soon now").

Cheers,
Wol