Open Source

Thursday, August 08, 2002

Heh.  Turning Someone onto Linux Is Just Plain Fun! I had two funny experiences recently about turning someone onto Linux.  No I won't preach (much) about the one true way.  Linux is just a tool, like any other.  Still, when you are working with someone who never, ever experienced command line computing, it can be very, very eye opening for them.  Now Gretchen is only a couple of years younger than I am but her computing experience apparently really hit in the Post DOS world so she's literally never seen this stuff before.  Here's the situation and two scenarios. Experience the First I'm working with my consulting partner, Gretchen, who's a designer, DreamWeaver / PhotoShopper, MA and MBA (don't hold that against her; she actually learned a lot in school and she didn't go to an ivy league school which is a frothy goodness in my mind; ivy league MBAs were partially / mostly responsible for the dot com flamout) . We're at her home office and on a deadline.  We've got a ton of individual HTML pages to correct and update.  Little stuff.  Annoying stuff. I take over the PC I ssh into our rackspace server; no need to FTP down or up.  We're going to do it live. I do the vi dance I make probably 200+ discrete edits on different html pages in less than 1/2 hour The combination of / i :w / vi commands and such is fairly awesome (if I do pat myself on the back) Gretchen is guiding me thru the edits (she handled the client interaction on this one), I turn around and look at her and I detect a bit of a glazed eye from the speed at which I was going.  Jaw dropping at times and such. Experience the Second 2 Weeks Hence I don't take over the PC I begin to teach Gretchen the ssh / vi tango (or is it a foxtrot / waltz?) Light quickly begins to dawn (she's damn sharp) When I teach her about right click paste, she likes it.  Just 1 button to paste = Cool. Point out syntax highlighting and :u for undo. Point out the mock dialog box system like :e . (which gives you all files in the current directory to choose which ones to edit) Appreciation shines in her eyes 3 days later she's still remembering the basics on her own when she dances the dance again.  Makes me beam with pride. I'm not trying to preach here.  It's just that command line computing is so fundamentally different from GUI computing as to seem at times like a whole different world.  And, when you first encounter a whole different world, it's always interesting.  I have the same type of experience whenever I struggle with the arcane, confusing monster known as Photoshop (I call it "the beast that ate all my RAM").  Will Gretchen ever go full *nix?  Of course not.  For what she does, GUIs work nicely.  But having the option when you need to do stuff quickly is pretty cool.  What she's learning, however, is that there is a whole different computing ecosystem out there.  And, while it's cryptic and arcane as all get out, it's also ripping fast when compared to GUI stuff.  It's also not all that hard -- at least at the basics. VI.  It's like crack.  A little taste and then you're jonesing for more. 9:36:29 PM