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Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook

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41–50 of 115 posts

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

#41
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself reasonably proficient in the shell, but I learned something just from your sample pages (process substitution). Purchased!

If you have not skimmed through the manual of bash¹ enough to learn about process substitutions, what makes you think you would read a book ? 1. https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html >

Maybe because they didn't think to?

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

#43
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself reasonably proficient in the shell, but I learned something just from your sample pages (process substitution). Purchased!

If you have not skimmed through the manual of bash¹ enough to learn about process substitutions, what makes you think you would read a book ? 1. https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html >

Different people prefer different formats for information. Some people prefer to read the manual from start to finish while others learn better seeing the same concepts in a hands-on tutorial.

From reading the sample of OP's book, it seems far more practical and accessible than the bash manual, so I'm not surprised that a lot of people would read OP's book that have no interest in reading the bash manual cover to cover.

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

#45
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself reasonably proficient in the shell, but I learned something just from your sample pages (process substitution). Purchased!

If you have not skimmed through the manual of bash¹ enough to learn about process substitutions, what makes you think you would read a book ? 1. https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html >

Because generally a manual is “here is every single detail of this thing”, while a book like this is “here’s an overview of the particularly useful stuff.”

I’ll go to the manual if I’m trying to understand how a particular thing works, or how to do a particular thing, but it’s not as useful to me for feature discovery.

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

#46

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.

I agree with all this. I'm on Firefox android, pixel, lose part of the screen too.

I'd love to read a table of contents. I don't want to rip you off with zero dollars!

Anyway, sounds like a great book. Congratulations on completing and "shipping"!

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

#48

It makes me wonder – what's that one command or concept you CLI vets wish you'd learned way earlier that totally changed your game, something that might be in that 'next 20%'? Curious about those 'aha!' moments!

the basics of awk and perl, these days jq as well.

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

#49

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.

I am also seeing text off the screen using Brave on Android.

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

#50
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older standard tools, because they can be easily put in CI pipelines and shared as scripts with coworkers. For example, in my personal and professional life I use Make everywhere. The book mentions alternatives, but the examples are built on the time-tested tools. I focused on things that don't require install (if given the option) or the ones that you are more likely to encounter at work. It is a tradeoff and I…

<3 GNU Make

Make is a powerful self-documentable tool. It can hide tons of complicated dependencies implementation details behind a simple and universal CLI.
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