This is an extremely important, yet most unrealized statement in the history of computers. Data is actually Text, and it strange so many people are unaware of Data/Text/String processing utilities and tools.
In my opinion everyone must learn how to use Unix text processing utilities along with Perl.
Often I see so many programmers, write small buggy sub set implementations of a few features of tools like awk, sed all the time. Especially if you are coming from a ecosystem like Java, its a habit to keep writing code for everything. Re inventing and writing code for things like what you can do in a line of sed or awk.
I've seen these problems more in XML heavy, and in general projects that don't involve a database. If only you would know how to represent your data in a more field based format like tsv, csv or even other record based files which can handled with some separator. You can save yourself writing several hundreds to thousand lines of code, by just using unix text processing utilities.
Of course if you know Perl you can move mountains like you move feathers.
Lastly, I would say those who don't understand Unix(and its ecosystem) are condemned to re implement it badly.