using an eMac as my main computer at home for, well, as long as the
thing has been in existence (5.5 years?). I think I stumbled upon the
"underpinnings" of the Mac OSX right after I got the machine when I
heard about all the cool Unix programs that are available.
I've played with loading programs via Fink and MacPorts (I like Fink a
bit more because like most programs, the one you use first is the one
you like). I think I learned the most about using Unix after using Dave
Taylor's <i>Unix for Mac OSX Tiger</i> back in 2005. From there I
started playing with shell scripting (another Taylor book: <i>Wicked
Cool Shell Scripts</i>) and more recently I'm working my way through the
wonderful <i>Learning Perl</i>. Aside from a purely curious pursuit, I'd
like to think that there is some practicality to all of this command
line, retro computing stuff. I mean, why bother with a prompt when I've
got one of the coolest interfaces in computing?
I think the answer may be that the GUI tends to be distracting and the
user might lose some power over what she or he really wants to do. I
think this is the answer. I also think that computers, as a whole, tend
to mostly be things to amuse us as humans (and that shouldn't be any new
news, eh?) So, for this week, I've decided to live a little off the grid
(or GUI) and live on the cli: to see what I can (and can not) do in the
ways I currently use my computer.
Now, to see if this post makes it to blogger.com...one of my first
issues: blogger.com doesn't seem to like text-based browsers like lynx.
Peace.
