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Exactly. “Linux, ew!” A big part of teaching computer science to children is breaking this obsession with approaching a computer from the top down — the old I

Exactly. “Linux, ew!” A big part of teaching computer science to children is breaking this obsession with approaching a computer from the top down — the old ICT ways, and the love of apps — and learning that it is a machine under your own control the understanding of which is entirely tractable from the bottom up. Unlike the natural sciences, computer science (like math) is entirely man made, to its advantage. No microscopes, test tubes, rock hammers, or magnets required to investigate its phenomena. Just a keyboard.

carlmr 6y ago
>No microscopes, test tubes, rock hammers, or magnets required to investigate its phenomena. They're full of magnets, and with electron microscope you can analyze what's going on in the hardware.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Yeah, but it's not required for a lot of investigation.
jtbayly 6y ago
Until stuff goes wrong with the hardware...
shrimp_emoji 6y ago
My sense is that people do think Linux is "cool" (it's certainly distinguished in being free, logical, and powerful), but its age definitely shows. My biggest pain points are: - Bash is awful (should be replaced with Python, and there are so many Python-based shells now that reify that opinion) - C/C++ are awful - Various crusty bits of Linux that haven't aged well besides the above items (/usr/bin AND /usr/local/bin? multiple users on one computer?? user groups??? entering sudo password all the time????) - The design blunder of assuming that people will read insanely dense man pages (the amount of StackOverflow questions[0][1][2] that exist for anything that can be located in documentation are a testament to this) - And of course no bideo gambes and other things (although hopefully webapps will liberate us from OS dependence soon[3][4]) 0: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3689838/whats-the-difference-between-head-working-tree-and-index-in-git https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3689838/whats-the-differ... 1: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3528245/whats-the-difference-between-git-reset-mixed-soft-and-hard https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3528245/whats-the-differ... 2: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3639342/whats-the-difference-between-git-reset-and-git-checkout https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3639342/whats-the-differ... 3: https://discord.com/ https://discord.com/ 4: http://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/ http://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/
- anthk 6y ago
  - Python as a shell would be the worst crapware ever. Whitespace syntax, no proper file autocompletion, no good pipes, no nothing. Even Tclsh with readline would be better than a Python shell. - By mixing C and C++ you look like a clueless youngster. - /usr/local is to handle non-base/non-packages stuff so you don't trash your system. Under OpenBSD, /usr/local is for packages, everything else should be under /opt or maybe ~/src. - OpenBSD's man pages slap hard any outdated StackOverflow crap. Have fun with a 3 yo unusable answer. Anything NON-docummented on -release- gets wrong fast. Have a look on Linux HOWTO's. That's the future of the StackOverflow usefulness over the years. Near none. Because half of the answers will not apply.
  - blacksqr 6y ago
    > Even Tclsh with readline would be better than a Python shell In fact, I think Tcl would make an excellent sh replacement.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      So, wish(1)?
      - anthk 6y ago
        There were attempts in order to create an interactive shell from the TCL interpreter, but the syntax was a bit off (upvar and a REPL can drive you mad), but if you avoided that you could use it practically as a normal shell. Heck, you can run nethack just fine under tclsh.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    You took that python shell too literally. Ipython included a shell profile (you can still use it yourself) and https://xon.sh/ https://xon.sh/ works just fine.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    The ISO C and C++ papers are full of C/C++ references, are the ISO masters clueless youngsters? Or for that matter the likes from Apple, Google and Microsoft?

carlmr 6y ago

>No microscopes, test tubes, rock hammers, or magnets required to investigate its phenomena. They're full of magnets, and with electron microscope you can analyze what's going on in the hardware.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
Yeah, but it's not required for a lot of investigation.

jtbayly 6y ago

Until stuff goes wrong with the hardware...

shrimp_emoji 6y ago

My sense is that people do think Linux is "cool" (it's certainly distinguished in being free, logical, and powerful), but its age definitely shows. My biggest pain points are: - Bash is awful (should be replaced with Python, and there are so many Python-based shells now that reify that opinion) - C/C++ are awful - Various crusty bits of Linux that haven't aged well besides the above items (/usr/bin AND /usr/local/bin? multiple users on one computer?? user groups??? entering sudo password all the time????) - The design blunder of assuming that people will read insanely dense man pages (the amount of StackOverflow questions[0][1][2] that exist for anything that can be located in documentation are a testament to this) - And of course no bideo gambes and other things (although hopefully webapps will liberate us from OS dependence soon[3][4]) 0: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3689838/whats-the-difference-between-head-working-tree-and-index-in-git https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3689838/whats-the-differ... 1: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3528245/whats-the-difference-between-git-reset-mixed-soft-and-hard https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3528245/whats-the-differ... 2: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3639342/whats-the-difference-between-git-reset-and-git-checkout https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3639342/whats-the-differ... 3: https://discord.com/ https://discord.com/ 4: http://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/ http://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/

anthk 6y ago
- Python as a shell would be the worst crapware ever. Whitespace syntax, no proper file autocompletion, no good pipes, no nothing. Even Tclsh with readline would be better than a Python shell. - By mixing C and C++ you look like a clueless youngster. - /usr/local is to handle non-base/non-packages stuff so you don't trash your system. Under OpenBSD, /usr/local is for packages, everything else should be under /opt or maybe ~/src. - OpenBSD's man pages slap hard any outdated StackOverflow crap. Have fun with a 3 yo unusable answer. Anything NON-docummented on -release- gets wrong fast. Have a look on Linux HOWTO's. That's the future of the StackOverflow usefulness over the years. Near none. Because half of the answers will not apply.
- blacksqr 6y ago
  > Even Tclsh with readline would be better than a Python shell In fact, I think Tcl would make an excellent sh replacement.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    So, wish(1)?
    - anthk 6y ago
      There were attempts in order to create an interactive shell from the TCL interpreter, but the syntax was a bit off (upvar and a REPL can drive you mad), but if you avoided that you could use it practically as a normal shell. Heck, you can run nethack just fine under tclsh.
- viraptor 6y ago
  You took that python shell too literally. Ipython included a shell profile (you can still use it yourself) and https://xon.sh/ https://xon.sh/ works just fine.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  The ISO C and C++ papers are full of C/C++ references, are the ISO masters clueless youngsters? Or for that matter the likes from Apple, Google and Microsoft?