For the most part, I can fake my way around the command line. I've been
using an eMac as my main computer at home for, well, as long as the
thing has been in existence (5.5 years?). I think I stumbled upon the
"underpinnings" of the Mac OSX right after I got the machine when I
heard about all the cool Unix programs that are available.I've played with loading programs via Fink and MacPorts (I like Fink a
bit more because like most programs, the one you use first is the one
you like). I think I learned the most about using Unix after using Dave
Taylor's <i>Unix for Mac OSX Tiger</i> back in 2005. From there I
started playing with shell scripting (another Taylor book: <i>Wicked
Cool Shell Scripts</i>) and more recently I'm working my way through the
wonderful <i>Learning Perl</i>. Aside from a purely curious pursuit, I'd
like to think that there is some practicality to all of this command
line, retro computing stuff. I mean, why bother with a prompt when I've
got one of the coolest interfaces in computing?I think the answer may be that the GUI tends to be distracting and the
user might lose some power over what she or he really wants to do. I
think this is the answer. I also think that computers, as a whole, tend
to mostly be things to amuse us as humans (and that shouldn't be any new
news, eh?) So, for this week, I've decided to live a little off the grid
(or GUI) and live on the cli: to see what I can (and can not) do in the
ways I currently use my computer. Now, to see if this post makes it to blogger.com…one of my first
issues: blogger.com doesn't seem to like text-based browsers like lynx.Peace.