I used to be on the yelling guys side and boy was I wrong. I now write scripts to do anything repetitive, all the time and it’s great. I have a whole library of them I use and add to and improve all the time.
It always makes me kind of sad when people disparage CLI use. It’s like people thinking they don’t need to actually learn anything because they can always look up what they need to know on their phone. It seems a shame to miss so much of the richness of the experience. I found myself arguing, promoting, whatever, terminal use a few times and then realized how pointless it is. It’s like arguing with someone about what food they like. You can just hope they develop a more sophisticated palate at some point, or at least become more open-minded, but you can’t force it on them.
This was a long way to get around to saying I like that you had that change of frame and are embracing the fun of personalizing your interactions with your computer.
Thanks! Yeah, for me it’s that I have a bad memory so memorizing argument orders and things like that felt painful. Scripting is the solution! And you learn while you do it. It’s actually kind of fun to make a solid script that works between various OSes as nerdy as that is. I’ve taken a lot of typing and memorization and turned it into writing (ideally solid) software that allows me to type 1-3 words instead of 20 words. It’s satisfying. And you’re right, it’s something people won’t get until they come to it on their own terms.
At work I routinely do laborious tasks the rest of my team procrastinates due to how repetitive and annoying it is. And often it’s with a command or two. It feels quite powerful. And it’s so flexible how you can combine languages and tools! It’s also just interesting to be reminded how all the basic problems were solved by the 1970s when a lot of these tools were created.
I used to be on the yelling guys side and boy was I wrong. I now write scripts to do anything repetitive, all the time and it’s great. I have a whole library of them I use and add to and improve all the time.
Yeah, I was wrong.
It always makes me kind of sad when people disparage CLI use. It’s like people thinking they don’t need to actually learn anything because they can always look up what they need to know on their phone. It seems a shame to miss so much of the richness of the experience. I found myself arguing, promoting, whatever, terminal use a few times and then realized how pointless it is. It’s like arguing with someone about what food they like. You can just hope they develop a more sophisticated palate at some point, or at least become more open-minded, but you can’t force it on them.
This was a long way to get around to saying I like that you had that change of frame and are embracing the fun of personalizing your interactions with your computer.
Thanks! Yeah, for me it’s that I have a bad memory so memorizing argument orders and things like that felt painful. Scripting is the solution! And you learn while you do it. It’s actually kind of fun to make a solid script that works between various OSes as nerdy as that is. I’ve taken a lot of typing and memorization and turned it into writing (ideally solid) software that allows me to type 1-3 words instead of 20 words. It’s satisfying. And you’re right, it’s something people won’t get until they come to it on their own terms.
At work I routinely do laborious tasks the rest of my team procrastinates due to how repetitive and annoying it is. And often it’s with a command or two. It feels quite powerful. And it’s so flexible how you can combine languages and tools! It’s also just interesting to be reminded how all the basic problems were solved by the 1970s when a lot of these tools were created.