More command line fun

I found the vi tutorial to take much longer than described in the assignments document. I’m not complaining though – thus far I feel this tutorial has been the most helpful in the hands-on exercises, and think this is in part because of the background I’ve been gaining in the readings, writing down and executing commands as well as looking up definitions.

I like going back and forth between insert and command using esc and i. It’s neat to see that the keyboard can have so many uses. I also like the :help command. This is so much better than accessing help in a different window, which has been my usual experience in using GUIs. Here help appears at the top of your window.

The most extensive configuration that I had done before this class was setting up wireless configuration on library users’ laptops and some commands through telnet for our library’s ILS Millennium. I’m used to the computer or the software “telling” me what is necessary (auto updates, automatic configurations, etc). But with the CLI there is an interesting paradox in that while we’re configuring everything by hand, there is at the same time the ability to make more extensive changes with one command than would be possible with the GUI. Not that I’m ready for that yet, but with repetition & memorization I’m hopeful that all the exercises and readings will come together to form a cohesive whole.