[ale] Topic for next ALE NW meeting June 16th

[Geoffrey]

Sounds like a winner to me.  You can always do a sequel??

Shall we dub David presenter for June??

David S. Jackson wrote:
> On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 10:46:23AM -0400 Dow Hurst <dhurst at kennesaw.edu> wrote:
> 
>>Have a 30 minute tutorial on shell usage in Linux from the basics of how 
>>you use it to what you use it for.
>>
>>
> 
> I wouldn't mind giving this a shot.  I don't know whether I *really*
> know shells, but I think I could explain and show how a beginner could
> become an intermediate user simply by using the shell effectively.
> 
> Seems to me, new folks want to use a file manager because it seems
> easier and they're familiar with the concept.  But I'd like to explain
> how the shell is a much more powerful and flexible tool and that there
> are many times when a file manager is not available, whereas the shell
> always is (in some shape or form).
> 
> Just off the top of my head, perhaps a quickie outline like the
> following could help:
> 
> I	Basics
> 	history of shells
> 	Files, input/output, directories
> 	top 20 commands and switches -- "man" is your friend
> 	background, foreground processes
> 	special characters
> 	pipes, redirection, stdout, stdin, stderr
> 	pick your editor
> 	vi/emacs command line editing modes
> 	using history
> 	tab completion
> 
> II	Customizing Environment
> 	aliases, variables, options, 
> 	.bash_profile, .bash_logout, .bashrc
> 	what are /etc/skel, /usr/share/skel etc?
> 
> III	Basic Programming
> 	scripts vs functions
> 	basic flow control: for, if/elif/then/else, case etc
> 	command substitution
> 	condition tests and file attribute operators
> 	reading user input
> 	string comparison
> 	exit statuses
> 	bash math (such as it is)
> 	positional parameters
> 	pattern matching "mv ${file%%.*}.new ${file%%.*}.old"
> 	here documents
> 
> IV	Advanced topics (for future self study)
> 	advanced flow control
> 	process handling: subshells, subprocesses, job control, trapping
> 		signals etc.
> 	debugging scripts
> 
> 
> Granted, this is a lot to cover in 30 minutes, so I doubt I'd make it
> all the way through the "basic programming" section.  But I figure I
> could write a little window manager picking script, or perhaps a small
> mp3 front end script, and the folks could just study it and pick up from
> whereever I/we leave off.
> 
> Naturally, I'd like to share this creation process with the list to make
> sure I'm not spreading "bad foo".  :-)
> 
> Whadya'll think?
> 
> 


-- 
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net

I didn't have to buy my radio from a specific company to listen
to FM, why doesn't that apply to the Internet (anymore...)?


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