Thoughts here might be incoherent, since they form as I channel my experiences. H
Sometimes you search for a problem with a solution, that can be expressed in a few lines of text and code:
a) how do I add ssh keys to my github account?
b) how to download a webpage, raw html in python
c) how do I calculate the sha256 sum of a string (in python/in bash)
d) how do I find out my IP adress
e) how to check if port 2056 on my computer is in use?
f) how to create a list of duplicated files in some directory
g) how do I measure size of a model in cura before I 3D print it?
h) how do I edit a bpm (bitmap) image in a text editor? what is the semantic meaning of the lines?
i) how to pipe a .dat file into a gnuplot script?
Are these kind of questions a problem?
Often you will find short workings answers with example code snippets for these questions on websites like "stack overflow" and "reddit", when typing these questions verbatim into a search engine of your choice (google, bing, duckduckgo, brave search, etc.). And you will directly collide with cookie banners, login requests, app usage requests and other popups of the modern web which worsen your experience. This hints at multiple problems:
- This shows us our countless tools have become so complex it gets hard to understand and remember every feature of the programs that you use? Or is it that we do not read the documentation or manual anymore?
- cooperation reddit/stack overflow/* may profit from storing these answers and indexing them for search. The Questions themself are valuable data that show the activity of computer users.
The gemini text protocol might help to lighten some of the reddit and stack-overflow pain points, but there is a deeper problem here.
Are we just lazy? If we did not have tools like search at our fingertips maybe we would write things down, or be motivated to remember them. Once you have read through the manual you may have knowledge about hidden features you might otherwise have completely ignored. And these "hidden and niche" features you read about might empower each other, making you even more productive. Or is that the manuals fault? Everyone loves to complain about the bad documentation of open source projects. Why do we search for these specific questions instead of searching the manual? For example Question (c) might be answered through the python-docs when you search for the string "sha256" you will even find Usage examples in the documentation. This way of searching might benefit your data privacy and independence, since you can download the python-documentation as a zip file of text files.
Some questions like (a) might have to be asked multiple times, at some low frequency, every year or so, when you need to add an ssh-key for authentication and authorization with some account. In the meantime you forget about opensshs options like ...
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "youremail@random.com"
Will you really remember that the key type ed25519 elliptic curve algorithm is the most secure one you should use instead of the RSA? The Long specific number 25519 makes this hard to remember for a noob like like me. Should I even try to remember the name ed25519.
Pros understand the principles and design decisions behind the programs they use (something I will call breadth-first- knowledge).
Noobs may only understand one specific feature in depth that they needed to do the job, while the global design space remains hidden to them (depth-first- knowledge).
- Laziness makes us reliant. Try to understand the global design of the tool, how it might interact with other tools and its all of its use-cases.
- Read more (Manuals)
- Tutorials can help you learn to become more productive, but only when you consider multiple (possible) interactions between tools.
This is the (sad) conclusion, live is hard.
Okay guys, bye!