Mastering those awks, greps and seds
What makes a GNU/Linux system infinitely useful and productive than a Windows system ? I would say, it is the countless utility programs available as part of the GNU Program. These nifty little demons are both a blessing and curse. A blessing in the sense that, almost all your text processing capabilities are handled smoothly and efficiently by these tools. On the other hand, knowing very little about one tool also has its disadvantages.
For instance, among the numerous options that grep provides, I thought that there was no way I could print two or three lines after the required, matched pattern, that is until I discovered those -A, -B and -C switches. Similar is the case with sedawk which provides more options and has numerous ways of editing text.
So how can one master all of those options? The answer is through practice and experimentation. Another golden rule would be to read the documentation. You see, unlike Windows, in GNU/Linux, manuals and documentation are your friend. They describe what, how and why the described programs behave. Although the documentation is long, it is credible.
Reading good books also help. Polish what you learnt occasionally. And always be on the lookout to solve problems in more than one way. Out of the box thinking and novel ideas always get you higher than conventional thinking ever does.
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