3 ms·

One wonders how long it takes people to figure these things out. Incremental reverse search with ctrl-r is not new and does not require a "modern" shell unless

One wonders how long it takes people to figure these things out. Incremental reverse search with ctrl-r is not new and does not require a "modern" shell unless you've been using Unix forever, in which case you surely knew about it already. Anyway just wait until this person figures out ctrl-a and ctrl-e and alt-. Then minds will truly be blown.

reuven 12y ago
OP here: I've been using Unix as my primary desktop, and Emacs as my primary editor, since 1988. I've known about these keybindings for a heckuva long time. But I keep encountering people who don't, and who are delighted to learn something new. I thought that it would be nice to share, that's all.
- derwiki 12y ago
  It was nice to share, thank you! I remember how excited I was the first time I learned about this command.
xaritas 12y ago
What a strange fit of pique. I make extensive use emacs chords to navigate in the shell, and I show them to people all the time if they seem curious. It never occurred to me to be outraged if somebody didn't already know. I suppose I occasionally lose patience with people as I wait for them to find "Copy" and "Paste" in the Edit menu, although I try to bear it silently rather than berating them. Nevertheless, I in fact did not know about M-. so thank you for your contribution. For those interested, I found it described here: http://www.aboutlinux.info/2005/08/bash-shell-shortcuts.html http://www.aboutlinux.info/2005/08/bash-shell-shortcuts.html It's not a comprehensive list, it omits one of my favorites, C-/, which gives you undo on the command line. Well, until you hit return, anyway.
dredmorbius 12y ago
The bash manpage runs 103 pages (bash | pr | less). That's quite a few features to learn. In my case, ^R was something I didn't discover for 3-4 years, until I saw a co-worker navigating history far faster than I'd seen before (I was aware of Bourne and csh history commands). And that was after over a decade of Unix use. zsh has 17 manual pages, or zshall which combines them into one, concise, easily absorbed 483 page manual. Ignorance is curable. Cluelessness (and spite) aren't. Many Linux tools have copious feature sets of which many users, even advanced ones, know only a small fraction of.

reuven 12y ago

OP here: I've been using Unix as my primary desktop, and Emacs as my primary editor, since 1988. I've known about these keybindings for a heckuva long time. But I keep encountering people who don't, and who are delighted to learn something new. I thought that it would be nice to share, that's all.

derwiki 12y ago
It was nice to share, thank you! I remember how excited I was the first time I learned about this command.

xaritas 12y ago

What a strange fit of pique. I make extensive use emacs chords to navigate in the shell, and I show them to people all the time if they seem curious. It never occurred to me to be outraged if somebody didn't already know. I suppose I occasionally lose patience with people as I wait for them to find "Copy" and "Paste" in the Edit menu, although I try to bear it silently rather than berating them. Nevertheless, I in fact did not know about M-. so thank you for your contribution. For those interested, I found it described here: http://www.aboutlinux.info/2005/08/bash-shell-shortcuts.html http://www.aboutlinux.info/2005/08/bash-shell-shortcuts.html It's not a comprehensive list, it omits one of my favorites, C-/, which gives you undo on the command line. Well, until you hit return, anyway.

dredmorbius 12y ago

The bash manpage runs 103 pages (bash | pr | less). That's quite a few features to learn. In my case, ^R was something I didn't discover for 3-4 years, until I saw a co-worker navigating history far faster than I'd seen before (I was aware of Bourne and csh history commands). And that was after over a decade of Unix use. zsh has 17 manual pages, or zshall which combines them into one, concise, easily absorbed 483 page manual. Ignorance is curable. Cluelessness (and spite) aren't. Many Linux tools have copious feature sets of which many users, even advanced ones, know only a small fraction of.