I reached Japan, and found myself with the huge task of quickly processing data from more than a thousand, continuously runnung GPS stations since 1996.Each station producing nearly 2MB data each day, I was given hundreds of CDROM to copy data from, to a Linux system, and I was new to these. The task required installation of processing software, produce quality result from the processing, and automate the whole thing . I ran to Tokyo, found an english book shop (a rare commodity in Japan), and came accross this book. Grabbed this book, and few more from OReilly's, returned to Tsukuba. By the next day I was half way through, and on Monday, I was already writing shell scripts, and frantically searching thr the book for proper examples and commands. After 4-5 days, I am more confident, and the scripts are doing these day long processing jobs, while I am writing this piece of note.
Like most of the other OReilly's books, this one also is an easy reading, easy to digest, useful book.
-Paramesh Banerjee