I've been using terminal for +15 years, and I just learned what this is. Because you highlighted it being crazy that someone didn't know what it was, I looked it up.
Neat! Thanks for teaching me something today. This will be helpful, especially after I spent all morning messing with crontabs and logs and permissions and PATH env's.
Edit: Having read more about this now, I'm realizing that I do use a couple of these out of habit. I just didn't know they were called "readline commands". I thought they were just "how to use the terminal". But there's dozens and dozens of other commands I never knew were possible. Brilliant. Happy Monday.
> This really resonated with me: even though entering some text and editing it is a very “basic” task, it took me maybe 15 years of using the terminal every single day to get used to using Ctrl+A to go to the beginning of the line (or Ctrl+E for the end).
I think your take is a bit harsh. She is quite a popular writer, and day after day, lays out her ego out for a beating by the InterWebs each time that she posts. She is never afraid to be humble. That is part of the genius of her posts. She says what so many are afraid to say publicly -- "oh this 'simple' thing is very complex" or vice versa.
I've also been using Linux and the terminal ~15 years, and these things i keep forgetting and relearning every now and then. About Ctrl+A in particular, it never sticks in my memory, since i find typing the Home key to be more intuitive. Maybe the author has this same "problem".
It's funny how other programs don't seem to have this issue, and their users are able to learn new things without having to resort to an external manual. Makes one wonder about the design of everyday things!
Yeah, I have my doubts about the claim. I forgot what I read way back when as an intro book, but I suspect it was more like a month in my case, if that. But I remember having been surprised at various points that there was an undo (C-_), and a clipboard (C-y to paste) including a history (M-y). So yeah, I guess it depends on the scope.
Maybe it's a hyperbole? Dunno, doesn't really read that way.
How can you discover something on the terminal itself? You fall into a pattern and stick with it. It is only if you get out of band information that you can learn these tricks.
Bit confused by this comment. I don't think anybody suggested you're going to find these things solely by interacting with the terminal - but rather through "out of band information" as you put it, which in GP's case, as he said, was a book. The surprising part of TFA, and replies to my comment - to me anyway - is how one can go so many years without picking up that information.
I have never read a book about improving my terminal knowledge. I have a few tricks I have picked up over time (probably through posts like this!), but never done holistic research on the subject. Therefore, despite having used the terminal for decades, I likely have a similarly long list of basic terminal knowledge gaps. I do not know what I do not know.
