Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#1

Post by tdurden » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 1:38 AM UTC

Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)
pgbovine.net

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#2

Post by ams6110 » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:05 AM UTC

If students can't deal with the bullshittery on the command line, how do they hope to deal with the even deeper bullshittery found in the libraries of most programming frameworks?

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#3

Post by hspak » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:08 AM UTC

You can call command line bullshit, but at the end of the day it has the least amount of abstraction meaning more visibility in what's actually happening. Visibility is always nice, especially when something breaks.

Say there was this nice GUI that built and setup lot's of projects for you. Who's responsibility is it to make sure that everything it supports stays supported?

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#4

Post by DiabloD3 » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:10 AM UTC

I don't get the point of this. The command line is one of the easiest thing in a *nix.

If they can't figure that out, how will they ever learn how to figure out real world software engineering?

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#5

Post by oldmanjay » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:10 AM UTC

To help those who are reflexively clicking "add comment" in anger, you really should read the article first. You're near certain to argue against a strawman otherwise.

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#6

Post by tormeh » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:12 AM UTC

I like the same author's "The Two Cultures of Computing"[0]. It's somewhat in the same vein, and also really important.

0: http://www.pgbovine.net/two-cultures-of-computing.htm

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#7

Post by blahedo » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

If you read this, definitely follow up by reading the (more recent) response: https://medium.com/@eytanadar/on-the-value-of-command-line-b...

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#8

Post by cheez » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

The most recent command-line bullshittery is JavaScript and all the node/npm bullshit.

Kind of.

It's pretty nice once you get used to it.

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#9

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:17 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

#10

Post by zem » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 2:17 AM UTC

hspak wrote: post #3

You can call command line bullshit, but at the end of the day it has the least amount of abstraction meaning more visibility in what's actually happening. Visibility is always nice, especially when something breaks. Say there was this nice GUI that built and setup lot's of projects for you. Who's responsibility is it to make sure that everything it supports stays supported?

If you argue that supporting the GUI is an undue burden, you're merely shifting that burden onto everyone who has to perform the same steps manually every single time. Automating or away may be more up front work, but it only needs to be done once.