Whats the best way to learn bash?

[Gotenks98]

I am trying to learn this for possible jobs in the future. Any hints on trying to learn it without a ton of memorization of stuff?

[Dick Montage]

Learn by doing!

[Unobscured Vision]

I hate to break this to you, but if you're wanting to learn Advanced Enterprise IT, especially commandline/terminal stuff like bash scripting, you're going to need a good recall ability.

 

The rest of it is just knowing where to reference information from quickly. Time is money, even in IT; and if you've got a nervous customer looking over your shoulder (or a bunch of them) you'd better be able to dazzle them with some commandline wizardry they've never seen before. Your kung-fu had better be strong. 

 

The difference between a decent IT Person and a GREAT IT Person (as in "Good GOD, we gotta HIRE this one NOW!") is the ability to:

 

1) show them that you know what you're doing, and you can do it faster than they can keep up with

 

2) you can, and will, explain what's going on in plain english so that they feel as if they have a say in how to proceed or have some informed decision-making (allowing them to "still be in control")

 

3) offer them alternative solutions that will save them time, and more importantly, money -- and here comes one of the "dirty tricks" of IT -- but keeps them reliant on your services without them realizing that they are reliant on your services (unless they hire you full-time). Use #3 at your discretion, because it's a big one and you ARE responsible for the work you create for yourself! You'd better be able to back it up!

 

So yeah. That's the short and long of it.

 

 

[binaryzero]

 

IT wrapped up in a nutshell ^^. 

 

How do you expect to do something if you can't remember it? You'd hate doing certs if this is case.. 

 

[Unobscured Vision]

^^ He's right.  But you'd better be able to blind them with Technowizardry when you have to. Back up all that talk to support the fee you're gonna charge 'em.

 

It always worked for me. 

 

I had a job in Enterprise-Level IT. I went to the Darkside. I didn't find any cookies, and Ventress only liked me for my body.  But by golly the money was good. If you can back up all the talk, you've got a good-paying job. I quit doing it because I got tired of the nagging; and nothing more than that.

[binaryzero]

I walk the walk, and talk ###### every day at work lol.

 

Let's put it this way - I've just spent most of my day in a meeting talking about how we're going to migrate some data, and how it's going to be backed up etc going forward. Meeting: 4 hours. Tech work: Probably can get everything in place within an hour or two. 

[Gotenks98]

The reason I did not want to try to memorize as much is because I noticed its getting harder and harder to memorize as I get older. I had to buy a Note 5 just to write everything down now so I don't forget stuff. I guess the next thing is I have to find a way to learn by doing. In my current position I do not do any linux support. However I have a raspberry pi 2 at home as well as a few Linux Vms. Maybe there are some free online training for bash?

[Unobscured Vision]

10 minutes ago, Jared- said:

I walk the walk, and talk ###### every day at work lol.

 

Let's put it this way - I've just spent most of my day in a meeting talking about how we're going to migrate some data, and how it's going to be backed up etc going forward. Meeting: 4 hours. Tech work: Probably can get everything in place within an hour or two. 

That's how it goes *now*. Back when I was doing the grind, the meeting was 1 hour and the work was 6 hours. Breaks (2-15 minute, 1/2 hour lunch) was the last hour.

9 minutes ago, Gotenks98 said:

The reason I did not want to try to memorize as much is because I noticed its getting harder and harder to memorize as I get older. I had to buy a Note 5 just to write everything down now so I don't forget stuff. I guess the next thing is I have to find a way to learn by doing. In my current position I do not do any linux support. However I have a raspberry pi 2 at home as well as a few Linux Vms. Maybe there are some free online training for bash?

Nothing wrong with that; but after a while you should know your troubleshooting routines by memory. Anything unusual, then yes, consult your normal haunts and otherwise be able to look stuff up quickly. That's all I was getting at. Most places are using Windows. Very few are on 'nix -- those are going to be Server Houses and Datacenters, usually. Or Universities or Labs. Engineering, etc. Some Hospitals use it, with large databases. Hmm .... yeah, it's needed more and more.

 

https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/bash/

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html

http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.php

http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/scripting/tutoriallist

 

That was the first few results from a cursory Google Search. There's a lot there to keep you busy.

 

Think I'll put those in the tips and tricks thread.

[binaryzero]

Just keep pracin' and you'll get it. 

 

But yeah, Linux is niche. 

[Haggis Veteran]

Just use it

 

Not sure if you seen my Stats Script in here

 

I made that to get into learning bash

 

I had to look a lot of stuff up but it was good to learn

[simplezz]

Try running a pure GNU/Linux terminal environment for a couple of weeks, write your own utility scripts, and get to know the core tools such as grep, awk, sed, cat, echo, ls, dd, etc. You'll get the hang of it in no time.

[vhane]

14 hours ago, Gotenks98 said:

I am trying to learn this for possible jobs in the future. Any hints on trying to learn it without a ton of memorization of stuff?

You learn by doing. Don't worry about memorising stuff. You can't learn to write scripts that way. Write enough code, and you'll remember what needs to be remembered. The rest you can look up whenever there's the need to. The trick is to keep writing code.

[birdie]

Just like you learn any other programming language - by reading manuals and trying to write your own scripts.