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I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

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Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#41

Post by joesb »

Ziomislaw wrote: post #16
Tloewald wrote: post #11

I raised my kids on GUIs and they love it. (I don't disagree that exposing kids to the command line is probably a valuable thing, but the idea that kids who learned to type a magic command to launch games on C64 have more useful knowledge than kids brought up on Mac/Windows is frankly stupid.) Last night my five-year-old daughter complained her iPad was out of battery so I gave her my Nexus 7 and she had no problems…

congrats, you shielded them from knowledge and managed to kill their curiosity.

Should have made the kid create PC from sand and metal. CLI still kills their curiosity about how transistor is made.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#42

Post by Tloewald »

Ziomislaw wrote: post #16
Tloewald wrote: post #11

I raised my kids on GUIs and they love it. (I don't disagree that exposing kids to the command line is probably a valuable thing, but the idea that kids who learned to type a magic command to launch games on C64 have more useful knowledge than kids brought up on Mac/Windows is frankly stupid.) Last night my five-year-old daughter complained her iPad was out of battery so I gave her my Nexus 7 and she had no problems…

congrats, you shielded them from knowledge and managed to kill their curiosity.

My kids know how to use several different computing platforms confidently and frequently surprise me with the things they're able to do without assistance.

Do I worry that I make bad choices in raising them? Every. Damn. Day.

But having grown up in the Apple II era, seen kids raised with DOS and C64 who learned absolutely nothing about computers beyond how to launch a game using instructions on the floppy disk label, and having dealt my entire career with command-line-zealots who claim productivity godlikeness while taking 35 magic key strokes to do something any fool can do with two mouse clicks, I'm happy enough with this specific choice.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#43

Post by a0 »

I think if kids were introduced to some kind of tiling window manager with CLI, they would easily get use to it and probably prefer it to complex GUIs.

The command-line is interactive and that's where its power comes from. I think a mixed approach would be ideal both for kids and professional hackers.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#44

Post by lightcatcher »

joesb wrote: post #40
lightcatcher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the kids follow the natural progression of using the command line, the dad will probably give them root privileges on their machines sometime between when they're 8-10. At this point (if not before it) the kids will probably learn about: -file permissions, users, and processes on Linux -environmental variables -package management -common Linux packages such as X, top, and probably others -piping/IO redirection -wh…

> -file permissions, users, and processes on Linux. Available from most GUI file browser. > -environmental variables Available on GUI. > -package management Synaptic, or some package management GUI. > -what a daemon is There's GUI for Service management. > -possibly how to use a "real" editor such as emacs or vim I didn't Emacs and Vim does not have GUI version. > More importantly, this kids will never be afraid on t…

Just because the tools are available through a GUI doesn't mean that the kids will use them the same way. I learned about as much about the above topics in a week of doing server admin stuff as I did in years of running Ubuntu with GNOME.

>I didn't (know) Emacs and Vim does not have GUI version.

Despite have GUI versions, the likelihood that most kids would use them is roughly 0. If you give kids a GUI, they'll learn how to use Microsoft Office/OpenOffice and maybe notepad/gedit. If you give them a command line, they'll probably learn nano -> emacs/vim and then use LaTeX when they need to make something they'd typically use an office suite for.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#45

Post by brodney »

Tloewald wrote: post #37
lightcatcher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the kids follow the natural progression of using the command line, the dad will probably give them root privileges on their machines sometime between when they're 8-10. At this point (if not before it) the kids will probably learn about: -file permissions, users, and processes on Linux -environmental variables -package management -common Linux packages such as X, top, and probably others -piping/IO redirection -wh…

The natural progression using the command line is to figure out how to avoid using the command line. The natural progression of forcing people to use the command line is to turn them off using computers. Now, the author is presumably a tech geek and the kids probably have some genetic predisposition to doing the kinds of things dad does, so I don't care to predict the outcome. Similarly, the dad may be a great and in…

I disagree with you regarding avoiding using the command line. I enjoy working in terminal and to the extent possible do as much as I can in there. I also try to understand what is happening "behind the scenes" when working in a GUI.

The way I look at a GUI is that it is built entirely on terminal functions. I see you disagree, but I don't know how a GUI could be created without being built on something at a lower level. Something has to cause it to work, somewhere between bits and hardware, and the screen. Double click to open file? Same as `open file`. Find and replace in a text editor? Same as sed or `s//`.

A GUI can make it easier to do those things, but not always. For example I find using git in a GUI to be a worse experience than it's command line counterpart. I'm more at home with `git diff` than whatever built in attempt at improvement is available. I'd rather edit and resolve conflicts in vim than a visual editor (even XCode which is a pretty nice diff tool).

In short I just don't see myself ever moving off of terminal, and I would never see knowledge of it as a handicap. On the contrary, I'm always looking to learn how to do something new and powerful in it.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#46

Post by lightcatcher »

Tloewald wrote: post #37
lightcatcher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the kids follow the natural progression of using the command line, the dad will probably give them root privileges on their machines sometime between when they're 8-10. At this point (if not before it) the kids will probably learn about: -file permissions, users, and processes on Linux -environmental variables -package management -common Linux packages such as X, top, and probably others -piping/IO redirection -wh…

The natural progression using the command line is to figure out how to avoid using the command line. The natural progression of forcing people to use the command line is to turn them off using computers. Now, the author is presumably a tech geek and the kids probably have some genetic predisposition to doing the kinds of things dad does, so I don't care to predict the outcome. Similarly, the dad may be a great and in…

> It's quite possible that knowledge of vim and emacs and package management won't be the world's most valuable skills in ten years. Whaddya think?

Replace your hyperbole of "world's most valuable skills" with just "valuable skills", and I think knowing how to use a text editor and a package manager will still be valuable skills in 10 years. The last 20 years of inertia serve as evidence for me.

> Only if that's the way the system is architected. Maybe thinking that way is actually a handicap.

That is the way all (afaik) computer systems are currently architected. Having a correct model of the world isn't a handicap.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#47

Post by gavinlynch »

joesb wrote: post #40
lightcatcher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the kids follow the natural progression of using the command line, the dad will probably give them root privileges on their machines sometime between when they're 8-10. At this point (if not before it) the kids will probably learn about: -file permissions, users, and processes on Linux -environmental variables -package management -common Linux packages such as X, top, and probably others -piping/IO redirection -wh…

> -file permissions, users, and processes on Linux. Available from most GUI file browser. > -environmental variables Available on GUI. > -package management Synaptic, or some package management GUI. > -what a daemon is There's GUI for Service management. > -possibly how to use a "real" editor such as emacs or vim I didn't Emacs and Vim does not have GUI version. > More importantly, this kids will never be afraid on t…

How to use a "real" editor: Oh ffs, c'mon. Most people in their daily lives will never need Vim or Emacs. And let's be honest, if anything, they're way better off using something like Nano, that has a short-cut system they are likely more familiar with. There is no need for them to go through the learning curve of a tool like Vim or Emacs.

Vim is my IDE. I develop entirely and totally on the command line, devoid of any GUI management or development tools.

But this is just silly.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#48

Post by jacob019 »

gavinlynch wrote: post #8
jacob019 wrote: post #6

adorable, and good for you! Seems kids now, spend all their time on computers, and don't even know how to use them. My parents supported my interest in computers from a young age and it's paid off for me a thousand times over, but that was when I had to learn about jumpers and IRQ's to install a new peripheral. I fear that if they had offered the same "support" these days, I would just be really good at facebook and…

I disagree. I think you're taking a narrow-scope on this story. The lesson here is that you can teach kids about any facet of the computing landscape, and they can catch on quickly and learn a valuable skill. Just because you're not getting into low-level hardware interrupts or vector tables or memory addresses, does not mean you "don't know how to use" a computer. I'm glad you have that knowledge, I enjoy stuff like…

I see your point, and it's valid. I'm just really grateful to have had an interest in computers at a time where proficient use has required a deeper understanding. I take my car for granted, it's a machine that just works, I need not understand the complexities of an automatic transmission to enjoy it's maximum benefit, and I have no desire to. I appreciate the complexities of the computer, and the knowledge has been a huge benefit to me. I would want my kids to have the same appreciation, but the conditions that have fostered it have changed. I think it's cool that the author is giving his kids a ground up introduction to computers, and I think it will help them.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#49

Post by teh_klev »

"I Raised My Kids On the Command Line...and They Love It" - no they don't, most kids just want to play with their paint or chat app or some game. OP's kids haven't actually learned anything other than they had to go through some irrelevant ceremony to get to play with their favourite app. You don't make your kids break out ICE's or hardware debug tools just so they can boot the lounge flatscreen so they can watch Postman Pat.

I wish people would stop pretending this is educational for children at this age, it's not. All the kids are doing is spending a bit of time with their Dad, who I'm sure they love, to get to the end result which is to play with TuxPaint.

Re: I Raised My Kids On the Command Line and They Love It (2012)

#50

Post by randyrand »

I think its sort of funny 'raising your kids to use computers.'

The first computer my family ever got was bought at the request of my older brother (probably around 1998) and they knew NOTHING about it. It was always us kids that were using it and figuring things out on our own - it was a fun time. Of course I was a little older than 3, maybe 6-7.

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