Yes, you can use printf and sprintf in WordPress too!

something.php

<?php

// Dirty, easy to miss a ' or " or .
echo '<a href="' . get_permalink() . '" class="link">' . get_the_title() . '</a>';

// Clean, easier to read
printf( '<a href="%s" class="link">%s</a>', get_permalink(), get_the_title() );

// Almost as clean, and more secure, maybe a little paranoic :)
printf( '<a href="%s" class="link">%s</a>', esc_url( get_permalink() ), esc_html( get_the_title() ) );

Good idea for one-liners, makes sense!

I always thought it had to do with translations, but I guess not.

What is the exact use? Looked it up on php.net but still don't fully understand why it exists.

@jarretc, yes it's used a lot with translations too, it's very convenient because it's so much easier to read, and you can move words around as well, like some languages say "%d comments" while others can say "comments: %d". These two functions exist in many other languages too, and I guess the "exact use" is, well, formatted output. I like to call it print/echo on steroids :D

Being somewhat novice at writing php, are there any exceptions when it's better to write something else?

In example, would it make any sense rewriting:

add_action( 'wp_head', 'cor_canonical_link' );
function cor_canonical_link() {
  global $paged;
  ?>
  <link href="<?php echo get_pagenum_link( $paged ); ?>" rel="canonical" />
  <?php
}

to

add_action( 'wp_head', 'cor_canonical_link' );
function cor_canonical_link() {
  global $paged;
  printf( '<link href="%s" rel="canonical" />' . "\n", get_pagenum_link( $paged ) );
}

@corvannoorloos it's up to you, but the second snippet looks cleaner to me, but I'd go slightly further:

function cor_canonical_link() {
    printf( "<link href='%s' rel='canonical' />\n", get_pagenum_link( get_query_var( 'paged' ) ) );
}

@kovshenin thank you! I wasn't aware of this use of get_query_var.

Personally I prefer to use double quotes on the href and rel, but this definitely gives me something to work with.

Good tip boss, thanks