Useful Unix commands for exploring data
"While dealing with big genetic data sets I often got stuck with limitation of programming languages in terms of reading big files."<p>Hate to sound like Steve-Jobs here, but: "You're using it wrong."<p>Let me elaborate. If you're coming across limitations of "too-big" or "too-long" in your language of choice: Then you're just a few searches away from both being enlightened on how to solve your task at hand and on how your language works. Both things that will prevent you from being hindered next time around when you have to do a similar big-data job.<p>Perhaps you are more comfortable using pre-defined lego-blocks to build your logic. Perhaps you understand the unix commands better than you do your chosen language. But understand that programming is the same, just in a different conceptual/knowledge space. And remember, always use the right tool for the job!<p>(I use Unix commands daily as they're quick/dirty in a jiffy, but for complex tasks I am more productive solving the problem in a language I am comfortable in instead of searching through man pages for obscure flags/functionality)