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The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

learncodethehardway.org

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Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#81

Post by non123 »

jimmyjim wrote: post #3

> The next warning is stay off IRC or other places where "hackers" hang out. They think it's funny to hand you commands that can destroy your computer. The command rm -rf / is a classic that you must never type. Just avoid them. If you need help, make sure you get it from someone you trust not from random idiots on the internet. I don't really agree with that. I know for sure that popular channels in OFTC and Freenod…

How to ask questions the smart way?

Lesson 1: Register with a female nickname: Jane123, KatyG, ... You'll see response time shorten dramatically.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#82

Post by rmc »

dredmorbius wrote: post #35
dangrossman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first experience on IRC was looking for help with my first Linux install. Someone in the channel telnet'd into my computer and wiped my hard drive while I was chatting. I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and my root password was one of those common strings (12345, abcde, I don't remember at this point). It had taken me 3 days to learn how to download Linux, make a stack of installation floppies, find and use part…

Unless someone 'fessed up to it, you really have no way of knowing who did this. It could just as easily have been a drive-by script. And regardless, it was a hard, cheap, early lesson in the importance of ensuring fundamental levels of system security. I've ... suffered worse. I strongly suspect you'll never forget this.

Stop victim blaming. This was a cruel and mean thing for someone to do to someone taking thing first steps in learning about hacking.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#83

Post by rmc »

qjz wrote: post #22

File and directory names can contain spaces and require special treatment. This should be addressed up front, before introducing commands with side effects.

Exactly. As someone who's taught command line basics, this is a problem that people have a lot at first

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#84

Post by DanBC »

jshen wrote: post #30
gbog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is not with rote learning. The problem is with the tone of this. Compare with LPythonTHW for an example of similar rote learning, but with explanations of why and a less angry tone.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#85

Post by gbog »

pessimizer wrote: post #73
gbog wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to express a view differing from the global appraisal in the comments. If it sounds defensive and whiny, maybe it is a problem with the way I expressed it, but it was not meant to be. I don't like "for the dummies" books either, I think this relatively new way to write books teaching something is no good for anyone. Showing a supposedly humorous disrespect for the reader seems to be acceptable in some culture…

Not liking something is different than it being "no good for everyone." Though you see that your culture is not everyone's, not acceptable within your culture is not equivalent to not acceptable full stop. Not everyone agrees with your permissions rule distinctions between instructional works and literary works, but this does not mean that what they are doing is not ok. Being criticized is not the same as not being a…

Ok, you have gained some rethorical points here. Some of my comments were a bit defensive, as a result of a feeling that I was circled. In fact some other commenters expressed views similar to mine and my first irruption has had some upvotes. Obviously some people understood what I meant, so I am not sure if it is needed to continue to explain.

Just a note: When I said "Showing disrespect for the reader seems to be acceptable in some cultures. It is not in mine.", it was just a polite way to say. (To say what? I just wrote it, but after some thought I yanked the thing. It was talking about culture as universal need for cultivation of oneself, aka education, aka civilization.)

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#86

Post by kkwok »

dboyd wrote: post #16
sc00ter wrote: post #7

pushd / popd where have you been all my life?! How did I not know this? Thanks Zed!

Related to that... the 'cd' section seems to be missing "cd -" (ATM). $ cd /some/really/long/dir $ pwd /some/really/long/dir $ cd ~ $ pwd ~ $ cd - $ pwd /some/really/long/dir I'm pretty sure "cd" and "cd -" are my most used commands. CDPATH ranks pretty important too.

What is the difference between the three?

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#87

Post by oscardelben »

kkwok wrote: post #86
dboyd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to that... the 'cd' section seems to be missing "cd -" (ATM). $ cd /some/really/long/dir $ pwd /some/really/long/dir $ cd ~ $ pwd ~ $ cd - $ pwd /some/really/long/dir I'm pretty sure "cd" and "cd -" are my most used commands. CDPATH ranks pretty important too.

What is the difference between the three?

~ is your home directory. - is the last directory you ran cd from. For CDPATH see this http://www.caliban.org/bash/#bashtips

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#88

Post by keithpeter »

zedshaw wrote: post #54
qjz wrote: post #22

File and directory names can contain spaces and require special treatment. This should be addressed up front, before introducing commands with side effects.

Oh yeah, thanks I need to put that early in the exercises.

How about including some examples of globbing all files of a given type including filenames with spaces?

e.g. 1) Find all file names in a directory that contain spaces and replace spaces with _

2) E.G save mp3 format sound out of a directory full of flv files using ffmpeg, flv files can have arbitrary file names, mp3 file names saved with no spaces

That kind of activity would be interesting to younger proto-hackers

I'm a teacher. A group of teenagers in a computer room (which is not your target audience) would not actually read your tutorial in an a to b fashion, but, when set a task would raid your work for the bits that help then achieve the task. I'd then follow up with a multi-choice quiz in Moodle or something similar to structure recall like your flashcards.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#89

Post by dredmorbius »

rmc wrote: post #82
dredmorbius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless someone 'fessed up to it, you really have no way of knowing who did this. It could just as easily have been a drive-by script. And regardless, it was a hard, cheap, early lesson in the importance of ensuring fundamental levels of system security. I've ... suffered worse. I strongly suspect you'll never forget this.

Stop victim blaming. This was a cruel and mean thing for someone to do to someone taking thing first steps in learning about hacking.

I'm not blaming the victim.

I am saying that, yes, he did something stupid and got spanked for it.

I'm also saying (and in my highly downvoted follow-up providing additional examples of) that it's reasonably if not highly plausible that the attack was wholly scripted and automated.

I've been burned myself -- by systems stuff as well as meatspace events. Very often the key finding of a particular experiment is "don't do that".

That was my point.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#90

Post by aridiculous »

I like the tone of the books. It makes things interesting and you feel like stuff is getting done. Just wanted to throw that out there since most of the comments are complaining about it. I don't want you, Zed, to get the perception that everyone is sheepish about it.
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