Know Your Tools – Terminal and Bash • Hacker News Board

Very true. I have difficulties in training new recruits with UNIX. For some reason, beginners have developed an aversion to UNIX/shell scripting. I myself have started more and more of Ruby/AWK/Python, but it is always SHELL that blows me off with the sort of impact it has on the daily work.

I ended up highly optimizing my work environment to replace long ssh connections with `conn prod` (will use my RSA key and connect). File tranfers with `go get prod filename` or `go send prod filename`. Another script that can remember directory paths (I have to go over lot of them every day, and typing long lengthy ones does not help).

To me, UNIX shell scripting is a lazy men's most effective tool, only if you know how to use that rightly.

Loved the post. And thanks much.

Re: Know Your Tools – Terminal and Bash

#6

Post by kbaker » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:04 PM UTC

To exit vim use :wq, not just :wq - most of the problem is it getting stuck in insert mode, and not knowing how to escape into normal mode.

Re: Know Your Tools – Terminal and Bash

#7

Post by guruparan18 » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:04 PM UTC

blueblob wrote: post #4

don't type `cd ~` just type `cd`

Or type `cd ~username` to goto that user's home path

Re: Know Your Tools – Terminal and Bash

#8

Post by lfowles » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:04 PM UTC

blueblob wrote: post #4

don't type `cd ~` just type `cd`

Also: Accidentally ran `cd`? Run `cd -` to return

I think there are some pop/push mechanics for working directory too, but I can't find them right now.

Re: Know Your Tools – Terminal and Bash

#9

Post by lfowles » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

lukabratos wrote: post #2

http://xkcd.com/1168/ ^_^

Lately, all of my tar use has been `tar -xvf filename`. I don't remember it always being the case that those options would automatically gunzip/uncompress, but they do now!

Re: Know Your Tools – Terminal and Bash

#10

Post by lfowles » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:08 PM UTC

kbaker wrote: post #6

To exit vim use :wq, not just :wq - most of the problem is it getting stuck in insert mode, and not knowing how to escape into normal mode.

^C also pops up this helpful dialog (after you've already pressed it once to get to normal mode, but the use case is that you're probably mashing it trying to figure out why you can't exit this crazy editor):

  Type  :quit  to exit Vim