Sometimes you use a utility so long that it seems you know it intimately, and then someone goes on and shows you something really cool with it that you imagined you had to hack it out yourself. People like Dru Lavigne make it look understandable that you’d be so enticed by other features that you’d miss some really nifty things about that workhorse. In the tar article, she often uses blatantly pedagogical errors to prove points (and perhaps bulk the article up) but it’s charmingly reminiscent of how any person comes to learn Unix command line—trial and error, usually sitting beside some wizard who knows how it’s done and why things happen.
My introducers were several engineering students at USC roundabout 1990 and 1991 or so, when I was bumming around in the engineering labs instead of studying the history of American experience. Eugene, Brian, Mike, Ron (the Ecuadorian), and Dave (the Los Angelista?). I haven’t spoken to any of them since I left USC, but whenever I use the command line to simplify my life, I often think of their patient if mocking guidance through the Solaris command line on SparcStations.
1:10:48 AM 
|
|
