[PLUG] How many of us write small scripts?

[Carlos Konstanski]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009, Keith Lofstrom wrote:

> Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:26:30 -0800
> From: Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com>
> Reply-To: keithl at keithl.com,
>     "General Linux/UNIX discussion and help;	civil and on-topic"
>     <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
> To: PLUG <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
> Subject: [PLUG] How many of us write small scripts?
> 
> 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

I do both. But my GUI hacks are generally webapps. This is because I
am a web developer, and I have a convenient web container for such
occasions. I am interested in playing around with ncurses at some
point. Being a product of the 80s, I have an affinity for plain text
output.

Carlos