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This entire HN comments page visualizes so effectively why I don't use Linux. Even when someone gathers enough knowledge to write an introductory guide to usin

This entire HN comments page visualizes so effectively why I don't use Linux. Even when someone gathers enough knowledge to write an introductory guide to using the damn thing, it turns out it's all wrong, has bugs, fails in unexpected ways or is a deprecated method that's being phased out. Respect to those of you who work with it.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
It's not a problem with linux. It's a problem with a tutorial written by someone who is underqualified to be doing so, so that she can get page hits to boost her "brand." She's a fucking streamer, employed by Microsoft to be a .NET "advocate" https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/gwyneth-penasiguenza https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/gwyneth-pena... Her site is just regurgitating the usual novice guides, of which you can find a dozen better examples.
- jraph 5y ago
  You can't make these gotchas affecting Linux distributions go away by blaming someone who present things the way many people use POSIX interactive shells. Being a streamer and a .NET advocate does not make one incompetent in POSIX shell. Thing is, POSIX shell is tricky and it's all too easy to fall into traps, even for experienced people.
jraph 5y ago
This kind of things can be found in any OS, especially widespread ones, which take their roots from long ago. We now would have enough experience to make things with fewer gotchas, but this would break compatibility and habits, and we can't get rid of the huge existing ecosystem anyway. In the shell area, there are attempts to fix the syntax, like fish [1]. I'm afraid this kind of things is doomed to remain niche, because when you deeply understand what it is trying to do, you are also probably used to classic POSIX shell enough that you may not want to change. Fish users also need to go back to bash or zsh to follow a number of tutorials and documentations, so even them can't avoid POSIX shells. I myself adopted zsh to have the features of fish and keep the bash-like syntax since I need to deal with this syntax either way. In the Windows world, and actually Unix too, there is also Powershell. Can't comment that much since I don't know it, but it does not seem to have taken off on Unix, and many people on Windows seem to use bash through WSL anyway. My conclusion is that bash and bash-like shells are ruling the world, even on Windows, and we are stuck with the POSIX shell syntax for now and probably a long time. [1] https://fishshell.com/ https://fishshell.com/

KennyBlanken 5y ago

It's not a problem with linux. It's a problem with a tutorial written by someone who is underqualified to be doing so, so that she can get page hits to boost her "brand." She's a fucking streamer, employed by Microsoft to be a .NET "advocate" https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/gwyneth-penasiguenza https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/gwyneth-pena... Her site is just regurgitating the usual novice guides, of which you can find a dozen better examples.

jraph 5y ago
You can't make these gotchas affecting Linux distributions go away by blaming someone who present things the way many people use POSIX interactive shells. Being a streamer and a .NET advocate does not make one incompetent in POSIX shell. Thing is, POSIX shell is tricky and it's all too easy to fall into traps, even for experienced people.

jraph 5y ago

This kind of things can be found in any OS, especially widespread ones, which take their roots from long ago. We now would have enough experience to make things with fewer gotchas, but this would break compatibility and habits, and we can't get rid of the huge existing ecosystem anyway. In the shell area, there are attempts to fix the syntax, like fish [1]. I'm afraid this kind of things is doomed to remain niche, because when you deeply understand what it is trying to do, you are also probably used to classic POSIX shell enough that you may not want to change. Fish users also need to go back to bash or zsh to follow a number of tutorials and documentations, so even them can't avoid POSIX shells. I myself adopted zsh to have the features of fish and keep the bash-like syntax since I need to deal with this syntax either way. In the Windows world, and actually Unix too, there is also Powershell. Can't comment that much since I don't know it, but it does not seem to have taken off on Unix, and many people on Windows seem to use bash through WSL anyway. My conclusion is that bash and bash-like shells are ruling the world, even on Windows, and we are stuck with the POSIX shell syntax for now and probably a long time. [1] https://fishshell.com/ https://fishshell.com/