Basic Interactive Unix for Data Processing
Abstract:
For most types of “conversational” data analysis problems, using Unix tools interactively is a superior alternative to downloading data files into a spreadsheet application (e.g. Excel) or writing one-shot custom scripts. The technique is to use combinations of standard Unix tools (and a very small number of general purpose Python scripts). This allows one to accomplish much more than might seem possible, especially with tabular data.
A reminder that not all data analysis requires you to pull out an app.