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Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

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Re: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

#101

Post by petr25102018 »

dtnewman wrote: post #97
petr25102018 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the input. I have made several updates to the book in the past and this would be lost in print, but as the book matures and I incorporate feedback it can be interesting to try offering a print version. Perhaps print-on-demand type of thing.

Amazon does print on demand. I have a book published there that I sell at cost and it’s about $8 shipped. Print quality is pretty good. If you make changes, you just upload a new template and you’re all set.

Thanks for the tip. I will explore it.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

#103

Post by danadam »

petr25102018 wrote: post #3
charlie-83 wrote: post #2

Cool, couple of comments. The website it a bit broken on mobile (at least for me) since text goes off the screen. Second, it would be good to have some sample pages or at least a page of contents so people can see the level of detail the book is aimed at. I know I could just get the book for free and then pay later but that kind of a faff and I feel bad choosing $0 for these kinds of things.

Thanks for the feedback. I was trying to make it work on mobile but maybe I didn't test it well in the end. As for a sample, I will go and try to make something now. Thanks. Edit: Example pages here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PkUcLv83Ib6nKYF88n3OBqeeVff...

page 112

> if [[ "${1-}" =~ ^-*h(elp)?$ ]]; then

> ... is an option that starts with one or multiple - characters ...

"one or multiple" is + not *. The regex above will also match "h" and "help" without - character(s).

Re: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

#104

Post by swhite237 »

Any resources or suggestions for how to find projects or exercises for each section?

I need to train some people (who will never use the command line and will go back to excel and VSCode, but I am not the genius who decides what people have to be competent in…) and this book is great, but I don’t think they are motivated enough to learn without some projects or problems and I struggle to invent nonsense projects.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

#105

Post by petr25102018 »

wyclif wrote: post #98
petr25102018 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! Yes, as other people pointed out too, the landing page could do with some mobile and copy improvements.

A note on English: "Fresh off the press" is the colloquialism you're looking for, not "Fresh out of press."

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

#106

Post by tanchaowen84 »

cool! Even though it’s getting easier to use AI to generate commands these days—I often ask AI to help me write commands myself—I still think it’s important to understand and systematically learn the command line. I’ll definitely recommend this book to my friends. One suggestion: maybe you could include some practical examples from real work scenarios in the book to make it even more approachable and engaging.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

#107

Post by honkycat »

brontosaurusrex wrote: post #88
honkycat wrote: post #64

#1 thing in command line shell scripting should be: "Do not use it for advanced scripts. If you have multiple if statements and for loops, rewrite it in a higher level language." This is also the advice given in the google shell guide. I say this after years of being a DevOps and Platform engineer. Bash is trash. It is great for 10-20 line scripts. Beyond that, it is worthless.

Is there an explanation why? (Average line count in my scripts is 115).

Cryptic, overly complicated syntax. for loops, if statements, etc.. are all done better in other languages.

No package manager, build, or dependency features. This means it is ugly and gross to import functions from other programming languages.

Zero data structure support, so any data manipulation is horrible.

No test support, so you can't mock and test business logic.

No debugger support.

It's just a bad, cryptic, confusing language that is hard to maintain.

Remember: it's not that you CAN'T do these things, it's that they work better in other languages, like Node or Python. And shelling out in Python or node works great and is very easy. And Python comes built into most systems these days.

It is hard to justify writing shell scrips anymore. It's like writing perl or cobol. We have better tools now, the world has moved on.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

#110

Post by petr25102018 »

flas9sd wrote: post #102
petr25102018 wrote: post #5

Example pages here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PkUcLv83Ib6nKYF88n3OBqeeVff...

if you add a cover page with http link, an example download read at a later time will find its way back more easily. Looks good!

Thanks for the suggestions:)
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