Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2014)

Re:Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2... by dexiwz on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:31PM (#10497273)

The 'bullshit' he is referring to is not the software itself, but its arcane interface. Think about the first time you tried to install a new version of python, only to have both version end up in your PATH somehow. Or run into permission issues and someone told you to run 'chmod 777.' As a novice, hours are easily lost trying to find the perfect commands to do something, and it often ends up being only one or two lines, something an expert would know immediately.

His job as a mentor is to empower his students to do research, not be sysadmins. Selecting a student based on a pre existing ability to use a tool drastically limits the pool.

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Re:Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2... by ocschwar on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:47PM (#10497353)

If you want to do research into something interesting and worthwhile, you can't expect to just have a fully fleshed out programming environment with no rough edges to deal with. To use an analogy, you're walking behind the guys who cut the trail for you with machetes. You don't get a blacktop highway to where you're going.

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Re:Helping my students overcome command-line bullshittery (2... by dexiwz on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:03PM (#10497436)

Turns out a machete is much easier to use than the machine that is Unix. A machine that will mow down the entire forest in 30 seconds, or blow itself up, depending on what you tell it. Oh, and that machine has 1014 levers, knobs, dials, most of which are only labeled with single letters, or vague snippets.

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