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Ask HN: Would a game to teach Bash & *nix be worth-while?

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Re: Ask HN: Would a game to teach Bash & *nix be worth-while?

#11

Post by newsisan »

timruffles wrote: post #6
rudin wrote: post #5

Loving the concept but maybe you should be charitable and make it free as it is really just a tutorial + triggers.

I'd love to but I'm not really at a point in my life where I can do a whole project full time for fun :) Since it'd be cloud based (as you'd be doing things which would be dangerous to do on your home system, under time pressure) it'd have running costs, and I expect the security aspect to be tricky.

Maybe user chooses how much they pay?

Don't write this on there, but have default at 20, minimum at 1/3/5/10 and obviously no maximum. I'd pay $5 if its good :)

Re: Ask HN: Would a game to teach Bash & *nix be worth-while?

#12

Post by ivanstojic »

rudin wrote: post #5

Loving the concept but maybe you should be charitable and make it free as it is really just a tutorial + triggers.

+1 because I feel what you are saying... but I'm with the OP on this one. Learning is free, being taught (even by a tutorial+triggers) is not.

Re: Ask HN: Would a game to teach Bash & *nix be worth-while?

#15

Post by timruffles »

ody wrote: post #8

Good idea however your site has no news, contact info etc .. nothing apart from an overview of the product and links to paypal .. add some info about yourself at least and I'll cough up £11.99. Good luck!

About me page now up (isn't it awkward writing about yourself :D). I'll pop more stuff in as it happens!

Re: Ask HN: Would a game to teach Bash & *nix be worth-while?

#16

Post by timruffles »

aw3c2 wrote: post #14

I might be inclined to buy it if it was a "pay as you go" model where much smaller amounts of money can unlock the next set of levels. Maybe a model like Project Euler (with paid-stages) would work better? I'd much prefer it to be free of course.

That's a cool idea, especially as lots of people wouldn't need the basics, just the advanced stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Would a game to teach Bash & *nix be worth-while?

#17

Post by souperhearo »

timruffles wrote: post #6
rudin wrote: post #5

Loving the concept but maybe you should be charitable and make it free as it is really just a tutorial + triggers.

I'd love to but I'm not really at a point in my life where I can do a whole project full time for fun :) Since it'd be cloud based (as you'd be doing things which would be dangerous to do on your home system, under time pressure) it'd have running costs, and I expect the security aspect to be tricky.

What about using something like kickstarter to raise money?

Re: Ask HN: Would a game to teach Bash & *nix be worth-while?

#20

Post by timruffles »

scrrr wrote: post #13

Nice, but I think game-features make sense where the actual learning perhaps is non-existant or not rewarding enough. When learning how to use a shell you have successes along the way anyway and you don't need any score or badge to feel happy.

I agree, but command-line skills were something I didn't consider learning explicitly - not really knowing how useful it'd be. I know a lot of developers with just a sketchy understanding of a tiny part of them!
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