[COFF] 21st Century Equivalent to 'learn'?

[Tomasz Rola]

On Wed, Mar 04, 2020 at 01:49:25PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> Hi all, I'm looking for an interactive tool to help students learn the
> Unix/Linux command line. I still remember the "learn" tool. Is there an
> equivalent for current systems?
> 
> I have tried to forward-port the old learn sources to current Linux but
> my patience ran out :-)
> 
> Thanks in advance for any tips/pointers.

I am not sure what kind are your students, but back when I was one
(and not in US, so my approach might not apply) there was some kind of
minimum required from a student to pass as "knows Unix". Stuff like
"show directory contents", "make directory", move around via cd and
pwd, chmod, some editing, write a C program and compile (CS students
were meant to program). It is possible that knowledge of /usr/bin/make
was optional. /bin/tar was definitely optional.

Majority (i.e. "all") would not give a hoot about some
"yoo-neecs". DOS and Windows 3.1 ruled in businesses, where the
majority expected to find themselves after graduation. Windows 3x was
all the rage. It had multitasking! And Novell networks, for the more
ambitious.

I learned more than minimum, because I actually wanted to _use_ the
facilities. Which means, solving a problem by writing some code (shell
script, makefile, C-file, awk). No need to convince me or make it easy
by some "pupil shell". I never expected this, I only expected good
manual or Readme.

BTW, I also perceived tools available on Unix as superior to anything
I could lay my hands on, including AmigaOS (which had number of
similar tools, but poor multitasking sometimes resulted in frozen
computer). Maybe VMS could compete, but was not so easy to have
account on it. So I falsely assumed one should choose the best tools
and now I am on this God-forgotten mailing list.

The list composed by Andy Kosela seems very plausible to my eyes, but
I am afraid the majority of modern students likewise are not going to
give a hoot.

Perhaps you could make some of them care more if you gave them a kind
of contest. Bare bones system install in virtual machine, no X, no
compiler, no perl, but yes vim and yes emacs (and maybe some others,
joe/jed?). Solve a problem? Small database a'la rolodex? For the rest,
just demonstrate they can mkdir/ls/cd/chmod etc and let them
go. Solving Project Euler tasks with shell scripts (or awk, when
applicable). A bit harder - solve the tasks and make an uber-script
which lists available solutions (say, it will find there are solutions
for problem 3, 5 and 9 and list them) and can display an answer for
problem by running a script. Student writes a solution-script and
uber-script auto detects new file and can use it without need to be
edited. If the solutions dir is empty, it will say no solutions
found. Etc.

I suppose some folks will be delighted by doing such things. Other
will be kicking and screaming - no need to give them bad memories of
Unix. Rather, let them see others who achieve.

I am not sure, maybe I would be a very bad teacher.

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **