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I finished it last night and wrote a "review" in a mailing list, so I'm just gonna copy that "review" I sent last night if anyone's trying to figure out whether

by r3bl 11y ago

I finished it last night and wrote a "review" in a mailing list, so I'm just gonna copy that "review" I sent last night if anyone's trying to figure out whether or not they should take this course: I just finished it. It took me less than half an hour. It was OK until I finished the 75% of the course. The last 25% were pretty repetitive: use nano to edit your bash config (they used .bash_profile as a config file), type something in it, close nano and use source to set the source of your bash config. I had to execute that same process at least five times and every single time the terminal session restarted so I couldn't use up and down keys to navigate between previous commands, so I had to type them again every single time. Plus there were constant bugs in the interface so I had to manually scroll the left sidebar to see the next task in like every challenge. All in all, you're right, very basic, thorough, and a bit repetitive at the end. Nothing really left a wow effect to me, but I knew how to use 95% of those commands. Others might find it more useful. P.S. I'm kind of surprised that they chose nano as a text editor. I expected vi, but I'm guessing they chose nano because it's more beginner-friendly.

photosinensis 11y ago
vim is available, and if you know how to use it, it doesn't seem to know what text editor you're using. At least, that was my experience. But I'll also agree that the edit bash_profile stuff was repetitive. I might have preferred something in there about symbolic links or ownership and permissions.
- cortesoft 11y ago
  If you already know about vim and how to use it, is this course really for you?
  - photosinensis 11y ago
    No, it's not intended for me. I'm actually evaluating it for other people (I work with people that are totally lost in Unix shells) and playing with its terminal to see exactly what I've been given.
- artursapek 11y ago
  We have actually been thinking about expanding on this content with more advanced stuff, including symlinks and permissions.
  - wyclif 11y ago
    I'd encourage you to make it more incrementally advanced, i.e. progressively more difficult toward the latter third of the course.
  - photosinensis 11y ago
    After you get past that, maybe some basic scripting would be in order. The course needs more content, through and through. You've got a solid beginning, though.
cglee 11y ago
If you're looking for another beginner friendly command line resource, I'd be interested in having you go through the below, and doing a comparison. http://www.gotealeaf.com/books/command_line http://www.gotealeaf.com/books/command_line
bphogan 11y ago
Just putting this out there - as a teacher, I have seen the importance of repetition. My students would benefit from the repetition at the end of this. Whether they know they'd benefit or not. Like scales on a piano.
- cwt 11y ago
  I believe in good repetition. But what is good repetition? Nano on a dot file 5 times? For the command line it should involve commands that will save people time. Teach them: 1. how to use find and grep, and other commonly used commands. 2. introducing them to vi and explaining why people use it (instead of nano) 3. user configuration with a brief on the FS structure (what is in etc, usr, opt, etc...) 4. lastly, but most importantly, how powerful and dangerous the unix command line is. Why you should learn shell scripting. And getting started with shell scripting. To me, that list would go from beginner to intermediate++
  - JoachimS 11y ago
    Sorry, but your second item, using vi has nothing really to do with learning the command line. You just prefer vi as editor and didn't like them choosing nano. Quite a few don't use Vi but use the command line. Don't turn this into a discussion about why Vi is the better editor.
  - bphogan 11y ago
    You do it as many times as it takes to become muscle memory. That's a lot of times for some people. I suspect many on this thread have forgotten what it was like the first time they did command line stuff. I teach this stuff in a classroom setting twice a yeaer. This repetition is sorely needed.
- ndrscr 11y ago
  The very reason that I became interested in programming is the ability to eliminate repetition. Instead of solving math problems, I could make a calculator program. Instead of typing something out many times, the computer would do it for me. Type once, run forever. That was an amazing revalation. If I had learned programming through mindless repetition, through typing the same thing over and over again (As codecademy has students doing here), I would have quit early on. Instead, I learned through solving problems. Diverse problems forced me to apply my newfound bits and pieces of knowledge in different ways. I always focused on eliminating repetition whenever I could. I had no interest in typing a lot. There are different kinds of repetition. Practicing the elimination of repetition is the best repetition there is. Finally, of all the computer-related tools out there, the command line is perhaps the best at aiding users in the elimination of repetition. With the ease of adding new commands, with programs like vi and cron at one's fingertips, there is so much even a beginning user can do to start eliminating his/her repetition. So to TEACH this tool as one of mindless typing is utterly abominable.

by r3bl 11y ago

photosinensis 11y ago

vim is available, and if you know how to use it, it doesn't seem to know what text editor you're using. At least, that was my experience. But I'll also agree that the edit bash_profile stuff was repetitive. I might have preferred something in there about symbolic links or ownership and permissions.

cortesoft 11y ago
If you already know about vim and how to use it, is this course really for you?
- photosinensis 11y ago
  No, it's not intended for me. I'm actually evaluating it for other people (I work with people that are totally lost in Unix shells) and playing with its terminal to see exactly what I've been given.
artursapek 11y ago
We have actually been thinking about expanding on this content with more advanced stuff, including symlinks and permissions.
- wyclif 11y ago
  I'd encourage you to make it more incrementally advanced, i.e. progressively more difficult toward the latter third of the course.
- photosinensis 11y ago
  After you get past that, maybe some basic scripting would be in order. The course needs more content, through and through. You've got a solid beginning, though.

cglee 11y ago

If you're looking for another beginner friendly command line resource, I'd be interested in having you go through the below, and doing a comparison. http://www.gotealeaf.com/books/command_line http://www.gotealeaf.com/books/command_line

bphogan 11y ago

Just putting this out there - as a teacher, I have seen the importance of repetition. My students would benefit from the repetition at the end of this. Whether they know they'd benefit or not. Like scales on a piano.

cwt 11y ago
I believe in good repetition. But what is good repetition? Nano on a dot file 5 times? For the command line it should involve commands that will save people time. Teach them: 1. how to use find and grep, and other commonly used commands. 2. introducing them to vi and explaining why people use it (instead of nano) 3. user configuration with a brief on the FS structure (what is in etc, usr, opt, etc...) 4. lastly, but most importantly, how powerful and dangerous the unix command line is. Why you should learn shell scripting. And getting started with shell scripting. To me, that list would go from beginner to intermediate++
- JoachimS 11y ago
  Sorry, but your second item, using vi has nothing really to do with learning the command line. You just prefer vi as editor and didn't like them choosing nano. Quite a few don't use Vi but use the command line. Don't turn this into a discussion about why Vi is the better editor.
- bphogan 11y ago
  You do it as many times as it takes to become muscle memory. That's a lot of times for some people. I suspect many on this thread have forgotten what it was like the first time they did command line stuff. I teach this stuff in a classroom setting twice a yeaer. This repetition is sorely needed.
ndrscr 11y ago
The very reason that I became interested in programming is the ability to eliminate repetition. Instead of solving math problems, I could make a calculator program. Instead of typing something out many times, the computer would do it for me. Type once, run forever. That was an amazing revalation. If I had learned programming through mindless repetition, through typing the same thing over and over again (As codecademy has students doing here), I would have quit early on. Instead, I learned through solving problems. Diverse problems forced me to apply my newfound bits and pieces of knowledge in different ways. I always focused on eliminating repetition whenever I could. I had no interest in typing a lot. There are different kinds of repetition. Practicing the elimination of repetition is the best repetition there is. Finally, of all the computer-related tools out there, the command line is perhaps the best at aiding users in the elimination of repetition. With the ease of adding new commands, with programs like vi and cron at one's fingertips, there is so much even a beginning user can do to start eliminating his/her repetition. So to TEACH this tool as one of mindless typing is utterly abominable.