Telling a Computer to Do Things
4 hours ago
- The author initially only knew basic terminal commands and could not combine them with logic or stitch multiple programs together.
- Learning shell scripting was transformational, enabling the automation of tasks by combining existing programs.
- Many engineers rely heavily on GUIs, limiting their ability to perform tasks not supported by the GUI.
- Shell scripts are often written in Bash or Zsh because they are ergonomic for stitching commands, compared to languages like NodeJS which require more ceremony.
- Knowing the shell is 20% syntax and 80% having a good toolbox of command-line programs such as fzf, rsync, xargs, and sed.
- Even a non-expert can gain significant value by learning enough shell syntax and a variety of command-line tools.