Comment Re:Type of applications (Score 2) 466
For anything larger than a one-off, I'd go with python/pypy (ruby and lua are also fine choices).
$ time awk '{print $1}' < f4.txt >/dev/null
real 0m0.296s
user 0m0.288s
sys 0m0.004s
$ time perl -pale '$_="@F[0]"' < f4.txt >/dev/null
real 0m1.920s
user 0m1.896s
sys 0m0.020s
$ time python -c "import sys;[sys.stdout.write(line.split()[0]+'\n') for line in sys.stdin]" < f4.txt >/dev/null
real 0m0.618s
user 0m0.604s
sys 0m0.008s
$ time pypy -c "import sys;[sys.stdout.write(line.split()[0]+'\n') for line in sys.stdin]" < f4.txt >/dev/null
real 0m0.531s
user 0m0.508s
sys 0m0.020s