Coming to programming via biomedical research (I'm the undisputed grand master of microscope bullshittery in my pathology department), I have to say, the wall o

Coming to programming via biomedical research (I'm the undisputed grand master of microscope bullshittery in my pathology department), I have to say, the wall of command-line bullshittery is much steeper than of anything else. I can count on one hand the people from whom I have had to opportunity to learn anything about the command line in the last 10 years. And I can count the number of hours of that learning I got too. I submit a more appropriate analogy might be mechanical engineering. You want to be a mechanical engineer and learn to build bridges. You'll start in middle school shop class and learn about sand paper and how to draw isometric projections. By the time you graduate high school, you can spot a 1/4" x 20 thread pitch (aka "quarter-twenty") from 10 feet. You'll learn the relationship between shims and wire gauges, drill sizes, flutes, the geometry of volutes and involutes, the merits of various steels, the dangers of overhead welding, the properties of concretes, how to patch carbon fiber defects, the grades and types of ball bearings, needle bearings, babbitt bearings, and their lubricants, crush plates, etc, etc. Along the way you'll have to learn the difference between Y and Delta three-phase power, how to analyze an op-amp, and how to model how the center of gravity of a car with shocks changes when it goes around a corner. The difference is that we have a shop program in middle schools and high schools that cultivate that culture. There is precious little in terms of UNIX culture cultivation before college.