The most significant attraction of Linux/Unix for me is how easy it is to do "cheap programming" - shell scripts, perl scripts, etc. I am a mediocre programmer, but with Linux and a little bit of knowledge I am able to automate many small tasks. This usually means that I forget how to run some commands, because I have buried them in scripts in /usr/local/bin or ~/bin . Since I can *read* the scripts later on (especially if I add a few lines of comments) that is actually an automated way to remember stuff without wasting a lot of attention on it.
Many PLUG members seem to spend most of their time in GUI-land. Which is good, if all the visual metaphors are consistent and the right tools are available. But it is much harder to automate small hacks that way - you become dependent on others who are skilled with gtk or qt and c++, who spend days to months polishing their creations with check boxes and options. So, I'm curious ... how many of us know enough to write quick shell scripts? How many of us know how to write quick 5 minute GUI hacks? Perhaps I can help teach some scripting, and learn some GUI hacking from others. The real value of open source systems is that they empower us to create, not just consume. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected] Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
