Decided to further my career and become UNIX certified. Have never taken a computer class in all this time; everything I know I’ve learned “on the road” over the years. I’ll be taking a series of classes through UC Extension one evening a week — a series that will last several semesters, since I have limited time to dedicate. The first class wasn’t scheduled for this semester, so am starting with a shell scripting class taught by John Muster, a gentle and wise Einstein-like figure. His book UNIX Made Easy is our text — he sees the book as a “sherpa,” which I can relate to.
Did a ton of shell scripting in the BeOS days (the 1,000-line RipEnc was my piece de resistance) and so thought I could coast through this, but after tonight, it’s immediately apparent we’ll be rowing this boat hard. Entire first session was on vi; I’ve got enough vi to get things done (which is exactly the level of knowledge he presupposed), but Muster wants advanced vi/vim usage to be like breathing.
It’s “pièce”. And I think the right expression is : plat de résistance.
Thanks Ludovic. In the U.S., the common expression is definitely pièce de resistance, but I won’t question a native speaker on correctness!
You will feel better once you become a vi/vim wizard… It is simply the way to go for writing code… :)
Seriously, though, my productivity skyrocketed once I really learned Vim.
Second Sean’s comment. ViM is your friend, and The One True Way ™.
EMACS, on the other hand, is actually an acronym for one of its weird-ass keystroke combos: ESC-Meta-ALT-CTRL-Shift ;)
I took his course in 2010 as a refresher. Wonderful teacher and nice person.
I thought I knew vi… ha!
Hey, cool to hear he’s still going strong. I owe a small chunk of my career to him.