On page 3, about "whoami"
> type this command 20 times and say it out loud
I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.
The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
21–30 of 91 posts
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#22 File and directory names can contain spaces and require special treatment. This should be addressed up front, before introducing commands with side effects.
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#23On page 3, about "whoami" > type this command 20 times and say it out loud I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.
Then why work through the examples?
The "learn by rote" method he's using here is designed to help people with little or no experience catch up quickly, and remember what they've learned without the many years of daily use.
If you just want to learn the odd helpful new trick, and basically know what you're doing, just ignore these parts.
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8605032/cli-crash-course.pdf git clone git://gitorious.org/the-cli-crash-course/the-cli-crash-course.git Use dexy with a Tex install and it's a cinch. Only hiccup might be a few specialized Tex packages it complains about needing.
I was very psyched to see this, however, I am afraid to tell you that this is missing parts of the text. It is missing the 'Do This/Source Examples' - a vital part of the text for sure. Replace with fixed copy and report back! Thank you kind sir!
Updated to the latest version of dexy and all appears to be well. The link should now have a working copy.
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#25On page 3, about "whoami" > type this command 20 times and say it out loud I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.
Then why work through the examples? The "learn by rote" method he's using here is designed to help people with little or no experience catch up quickly, and remember what they've learned without the many years of daily use. If you just want to learn the odd helpful new trick, and basically know what you're doing, just ignore these parts.
That is just one example of the tone of this book, and I just don't like it, and I don't understand why it has so many supposedly adult people accepting things like:
> No, seriously, type it 20 times and say it out loud. Sssh. Just do it.
I supposed it was a kind of cold joke but it appears not to be. It is just very disrespectful for the reader. Grown up human beings are not to be taken by the hand like /this/ to learn something as serious and advanced as command line.
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#26On page 3, about "whoami" > type this command 20 times and say it out loud I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.
I agree. The tone is not for me and it sounds really put on.
"The only piece of advice I am going to give you is this:
Shut the hell up and type this in then try to understand it.
Sorry to be mean, but that's what you have to do. You have an irrational fear of the command line and the only way to conquer an irrational fear is to just shut up and fight through it."
Why say "shut the hell up"? Why assume that the reader has an irrational fear? Most people are just trying to learn because they currently don't know. Not because they are afraid. They don't need some kind of drill sergeant to aggressively push them into it. They've already taken the initiative to seek out the knowledge and begin reading it.
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#27Was talking about going Linux soon, and this'll help me work from Terminal exclusively. Thanks!
I use a macbook as my main workstation, but all my development happens in linux VMs. It only takes a few minutes to install a headless ubuntu in VMWare, so I create a new one for every project I start. This has several advantages:
- No configurations/installs from previous projects screwing things up (I know you can use tools like RVM and virtual-env, but in my experience starting from scratch is easier).
- Snapshots. It's great to be able to restore from a snapshot when you bork an upgrade.
- I've become very good at configuring a basic LAMP stack from memory.
Screen+Vim and the ability to suspend/resume machine images makes for an extremely flexible and ubiquitous development environment. I've considered doing this with AWS but there are still odd times where I find myself without an internet connection.
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#28pushd / popd where have you been all my life?! How did I not know this? Thanks Zed!
`please` don't use this in scripts. It makes it so hard to debug things later when the next guy comes along and has no idea where you end up after you pop. (can you tell this has been happening to me recently?!)
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was very psyched to see this, however, I am afraid to tell you that this is missing parts of the text. It is missing the 'Do This/Source Examples' - a vital part of the text for sure. Replace with fixed copy and report back! Thank you kind sir!
Updated to the latest version of dexy and all appears to be well. The link should now have a working copy.
Very good, thank you!
Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then why work through the examples? The "learn by rote" method he's using here is designed to help people with little or no experience catch up quickly, and remember what they've learned without the many years of daily use. If you just want to learn the odd helpful new trick, and basically know what you're doing, just ignore these parts.
That is just one example of the tone of this book, and I just don't like it, and I don't understand why it has so many supposedly adult people accepting things like: > No, seriously, type it 20 times and say it out loud. Sssh. Just do it. I supposed it was a kind of cold joke but it appears not to be. It is just very disrespectful for the reader. Grown up human beings are not to be taken by the hand like /this/ to le…
Grown adults are taught in a manner similar this everyday in basic training for the army. They teach far more serious topics, and it's effective.
Also, smart people learn to skim and skip when needed. Writing like thus serves both cause the smarter ones skip.