+1 for introducing me to the term "bullshittery." My undergrad was in music and when I went for a master's in CS, I knew like, nothing, and suffered under a lo

+1 for introducing me to the term "bullshittery." My undergrad was in music and when I went for a master's in CS, I knew like, nothing, and suffered under a lot of the command line bullshittery he refers to. And most profs at the master's level were unwilling/unable to help with that sort of thing. One of the most useful classes I took was a (totally non-degree fulfilling) undergrad course in Unix system administration. Nonetheless, I believe that mastering the command line and general Unix environment is still rather essential. Things like basic vim usage, or readline shortcuts (http://www.bigsmoke.us/readline/shortcuts http://www.bigsmoke.us/readline/shortcuts). I still see experienced folks cursoring around on the command line a character at a time, which sort of makes me cringe. It might be interesting to see some sort of catch-all "systems skills" CS course that covers a lot of this sort of thing.