Blog: Chatting To A Colleague About Linux

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For the past three days I have been on a COURSE. I haven't been on a course for AGES but it turns out that they are EXACTLY the same. Guy Who Thinks It's A One To One is still there (and still giving ANECDOTES about how he knows a different way to do all this which is better but he's here anyway and has forgotten how to switch a monitor on), Awkward Chats during breaks are DE RIGEUR and you will Finish A Bit Early On The Last Day.

I'd actually forgotten this last aspect, and was reminded of it before I set off by The Chapters In My Manual. "The course leader will ask 'shall we just have a half hour lunch break, then go home?' on the last day," she predicted, so when he said EXACTLY THAT at the start of day 3 I was AFEARED. Have I been courting a SOOTHSAYER all this time?

The course itself was an introduction to LINUX. Linux! In my current job I have been thrown into a great big pool of LINUX without a boat, rubber wings or indeed TRUNKS so had engaged myself on this course to try and get some sort of clue what was going on. As it turns out, I sort of knew some of it already, I just hadn't USED any of this knowledge for 25 years. Computers have changed a LOT over the past quarter of a century but, it appears, Linux has NOT. "Oooh", say Linux fans, "You can do anything on Linux!" Yes, you can, but it takes about a million years and 300 key strokes to do THE SIMPLEST OF TASKS and if you get anything wrong THE COMPUTER EXPLODES. I think the big difference between Linux and other operating systems is that Linux is for people who want to do things TO computers, the rest are for people who want to do things WITH computers!

Still, it was actually quite interesting also a RELIEF to have got my head round it a bit more. The only disadvantage to 3 days of solid LINUX THORTS is that now I find myself THINKING in Linux. "I'll just grep the pasta and pipe it to the plate," I thought, later that evening. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!?!?

posted 28/7/2016 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

"I'll just grep the pasta and pipe it to the plate," Unfortunately, that made me laugh at a bad moment. tea | nose > phone
posted 1/8/2016 by ElizabethW

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