Your research has generated gigabytes of data & now you need to analyse it. You hate using spreadsheets but it is all you know so what else can you do? This book will transform how you work with large & complex data sets teaching you powerful programming tools for slicing & dicing data to suit your needs. Written in a fun & accessible style this step-by-step guide will inspire & inform non-programmers about the essential aspects of Unix & Perl. It shows how with just a little programming knowledge you can write programs that could save you hours or even days. No prior experience is required & new concepts are introduced using numerous code examples that you can try out for yourself. Going beyond the basics the authors touch upon many broader topics that will help those new to programming including debugging & how to write in a good programming style.