I had the same feeling, but I suppose the point is that it serves as a guide for people who have SSH access to a box / shared hosting setup somewhere but know a

I had the same feeling, but I suppose the point is that it serves as a guide for people who have SSH access to a box / shared hosting setup somewhere but know absolutely nothing about the *nix shell or what it is they're sat in front of. I suppose in that case they'd Google "SSH commands" and come across this post. Really though, a couple of paragraphs on the concept of the "shell" and how it relates to SSH and everything else probably wouldn't go amiss in a guide aimed at absolute beginners.