Laurabelle’s Blog

It is pure coincidence that I decided to write a post about Unix training on the anniversary of a post about Being a geek. It makes a nice bookend, though, since I'm going to be doing this training for work, and I wrote the previous post just before I started my current job.

I work at a very Unix shop; I spend my whole day on Unix machines (Alphas and Suns, mostly). I was fortunate to have Linux experience before I started; it especially helped that I was comfortable with vi. (vi usage is mandatory; everyone has to learn it.) Most of my colleagues are not so lucky and have to figure it all out while they're just trying to get their work done.

Admittedly I have also learned a lot about Unix utilities in the last couple of years. I did not know about cut or sort before I started, and now I use them all the time. I do everything I can on the command line; I find it faster and easier that way. I assumed that my colleagues would also pick up new tools as they went along, but recently a co-worker told me I don't know how to use cut; I just copy from your calls! I was astonished. If she didn't feel she understood cut, maybe others didn't either.

So now I am planning a small Unix training series. To start off, I'll do three sessions: basic utilities, intermediate utilities, and shell scripting. I am thinking about what I want to cover and especially how I am going to cover it. This whole exercise will be entirely pointless if I only succeed in scaring people off. I want to show people tools that can make their lives easier, not make them learn something new and complicated.

I want to give them the hacker mentality of always looking for a better, easier way to accomplish a task. I want them to make the computer work for them.

It will be at least a month before I give the first part of my training, and that's just as well. I will need the time to prepare.