alt Hacker NewsAs a young Linux user I always hated the experimentation aspect because usually it meant just straight up getting the command wrong 5 times before trying to read the man page, thinking I understood what the man page meant, trying again another 5 times and then giving up.
This idea of experimenting and getting instant feedback is just survivorship bias for a certain type of person, not “the way we ought to teach Unix shell”
This view is corroborated by the research summarized and presented in the programmer’s brain by Felienne Hermans.
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Maybe I am wrong about this but I think a lot of recent research has shown that trial and error is a great way to learn almost everything. Even just making an educated guess, even if it is completely wrong, before learning something makes it much more likely that you remember and understand the thing that you learn. It’s a painful and time-consuming way to learn. But very effective.
Maybe Linux commands is a little different but I kinda doubt it. Errors and feedback are the way to learn, as long as you can endure the pain of getting to the correct result.
I'd add nuance to Hermans' work. Its not all experiment blind, but also not feedback-less. They advocate for "direct instruction", not just rote learning.
> As that is not a surprise, since research keeps showing that direct instruction—explanation followed by a lot of focused practice—works well.
Note the "lot of focused practice".
I'd like to add that, while anything will have some learning friction, learning the Unix CLI is rather unnecessarily painful.
I'm trying to remember being a young Unix user but it was four decades ago, so the details become hazy. Nevertheless the proper go-to after the manpage fails to clarify matters is the same as it ever was, that is, one reads the source code, if you have it, and this is easier today than ever.
> usually it meant just straight up getting the command wrong 5 times before trying to read the man page, thinking I understood what the man page meant, trying again another 5 times
I think that is a developer's superpower. The poncy term for it is grit. I tell others that the secret to leaning computers is frustration and persistence.
> and then giving up.
Knowing when to stop or change direction is hard.
I've definitely wasted years of work failing to solve something that I eventually had to give up on (most memorably depending on nasty Microsoft products).
But I've also been paid very nicely because I've solved problems that others struggled with.
And I was paid for the failures too.