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A comment on President Obama calls on every American to learn code. Parent comment

Re:President Obama calls on every American to learn code by aegiso on Monday December 09, 2013 @08:24PM (#6878384)
> That said, how many working people have ever had to face the problem of getting a list of filenames into an email?

Few, because when tasked with a problem that this could solve, most people would immediately throw up their hands and give up. This is the biggest obstacle of all.

"Which pictures are you missing?" "I don't know, I'm not going to flip through them all!"

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Re:President Obama calls on every American to learn code by tmzt on Monday December 09, 2013 @09:07PM (#6878518)
Or take a series of screenshots (scrolling through the files as they go) which they then will paste into Word.
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Re:President Obama calls on every American to learn code by hrrsn on Tuesday December 10, 2013 @06:12AM (#6880063)
And then they'll print it out and scan it to you.

(This happens more often than I'd like to admit)

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Re:President Obama calls on every American to learn code by trhaynes on Monday December 09, 2013 @09:39PM (#6878659)
On Mac: select files, copy, switch to text area, paste. Actually, I'd be surprised if this didn't work on Windows, too...
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Re:President Obama calls on every American to learn code by chii on Monday December 09, 2013 @10:58PM (#6878904)
For this particular example, the creators of the OS has thought of the function, and implemented it.

But what about a slightly different one? E.g.

I have two folders, each a bunch of files. Are there any files that are not in both folders?

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Re:President Obama calls on every American to learn code by elheffe80 on Tuesday December 10, 2013 @02:03AM (#6879380)
diff -r dir1/ dir2/

edit: I did not know this- I just posted it because it is but one answer. For what it is worth, I agree with you- basic knowledge of programming is something everyone should know.

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Re:President Obama calls on every American to learn code by rhizome on Tuesday December 10, 2013 @01:19PM (#6882491)
The thing is, diff and "get a list of filenames into an email/textfile" is not programming.
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