[HN Gopher] I raised my kids on the command line and they love it
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I raised my kids on the command line and they love it
Author : CalRobert
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-07-25 20:25 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lifehacker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lifehacker.com)
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Geez, it sounds like a really good bonding activity and
| discussion format they've got going there. I'd be excited too.
|
| My son once asked me as I was walking down the hall, "dad, how do
| I install Steam?" I walked in his room and he had a very
| prominently placed terminal open, where I saw that he was typing
| "sudo apt install steam". I practically core dumped in shock.
| "Whoa buddy! Wow!" and of course that's what he was going for,
| since he has the affinity-vibe concept absolutely locked down and
| has had this gift ever since birth as far as I can tell.
|
| Half or even most of that typing was just to synchronize with
| dad's values and build affinity. I respect it and I also, knowing
| that it's not _exactly_ 100% terminal love, don't push the
| terminal too hard unless it's related to a specific goal of his.
|
| Meanwhile my other kids get up and leave for a snack as soon as I
| open the terminal on their desktops (it saves me time, they get
| that). But they are on the other hand really good at introducing
| COTS thinking into our household. :-) Sometimes you gotta go with
| the social tech bell curve. Just go buy the thing that does what
| you want! Duh! And I agree, you can define this as rationality
| itself in fact. Tinkering, scripting...irrational in some ways
| for sure, so good thing we have other ways of discussing its
| value.
|
| Speaking of uh, typing, I was just today remembering one of the
| most scary experiences my kids and I have ever had, playing this
| roguelike game together...
|
| http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php/AliensRL
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > sudo apt install steam
|
| Kudos to the parent for teaching them the modern form; I still
| see people using apt-get for no reason.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I'm surprised how many people are dismissive of learning the
| command line like it's obsolete. I still use the command line
| constantly and would be lost without it, and I'd like my kids to
| understand what's going on better than they can with a desktop
| environment.
|
| I have a 4 year old and found an old Raspberry pi earlier and
| decided to hook it up to the TV. She was thrilled (and spent
| plenty of time using a keyboard and mouse for the first time. She
| liked it! And we don't hide her from technology)
|
| Just because we have calculators doesn't mean learning to do math
| on paper is a bad idea.
|
| I was only slightly older than her in the late 80's when we got a
| 286 and I learned to do `cd games` `dir` `some_game.exe` etc. and
| I learned the very basics of what a file/directory structure
| (something a lot of young adults don't understand) is, among
| other things. Some games meant editing autoexec.bat and that was
| helpful for understanding system config. Obviously I'm not
| looking for autoexec now but just understanding that such a
| config exists is useful.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _the very basics of what a file /directory structure
| (something a lot of young adults don't understand)_
|
| My dad is confused by the false-skeuomorphism of the word
| "file". He thinks of them as containers, since this is how
| "file" is used in the paper sense ("hand me the file on Mrs.
| Anderson"). So when he's describing something on the computer,
| he will often refer to a folder as a "file", which can be
| confusing even though I know he uses this term in this way.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| True, and yet computer files can be containers as well.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| In other news: I taught my children how to hook up the buggy to
| the horse. Then I pulled out my great grandfather's Model T and
| worked them through how to adjust the spark and planning their
| stops because it didn't have normal brake pads. Then I taught
| them how to drive stick in a car that requires double-clutching
| because it doesn't have synchromesh...
|
| I honestly don't "get" this need to raise our children with a
| state of technology like we had when we were kids. My kids use
| tablets, and when they want/need to use a full powered computer
| I'll just show them how to use one.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| The real problem with your analogy is that the command line is
| more advanced than the GUI. That's why advanced users use it
| and beginners do not.
|
| To borrow an expression: reading and writing is more advanced
| than pointing and grunting.
| [deleted]
| decafninja wrote:
| I'll be the odd man out amongst the responses and agree with
| you.
|
| Not everyone needs/wants to be a software engineer or other
| kind of computer savvy person. The majority of people get along
| with life just fine these days with just a smartphone and/or
| tablet as their only computing device.
|
| Now the caveat to this is, what if your child is the next
| potential super rockstar ninja pirate 100x SWE in waiting? I
| suppose there is nothing wrong with trying to get them
| interested in computers.
|
| I kinda wonder how I would raise my own future kid when I hear
| stories of superstars in various realms ranging from musicians*
| to Formula1 drivers, etc. Most of them started extremely young
| - young enough that the decision to get them involved was their
| parents', not their own.
|
| * I had a friend who was an absolute kickass cellist. However
| he claimed he would never advance beyond the ranks of a school
| music teacher because he started the instrument at age 8
| whereas the real talent start before age 5. It boggled my mind.
| CalRobert wrote:
| The difference here is that the command line is still a
| valuable tool. It's not obsolete. And your kids may not be
| interested in learning how computers work if they've never
| needed to figure them out to get to what they want.
| s_dev wrote:
| >In other news: I taught my children how to hook up the buggy
| to the horse. Then I pulled out my great grandfather's Model T
| and worked them through how to adjust the spark and planning
| their stops because it didn't have normal brake pads.
|
| You joke but a lot of learning comes from things like this.
|
| >I honestly don't "get" this need to raise our children with a
| state of technology like we had when we were kids
|
| It's basically like if I want to understand unix better -- I
| actually find tutorials written in the 70/80s much better than
| some of the stuff you see on YouTube or more modern tutorials
| -- even with all there inaccuracies in terms of getting to grip
| the core concepts it often gets straight to the point.
| omnibrain wrote:
| >It's basically like if I want to understand unix better -- I
| actually find tutorials written in the 70/80s much better
| than some of the stuff you see on YouTube or more modern
| tutorials
|
| Or even the 90ies/early 2000.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32013779#32015159
| deanmen wrote:
| xmonad came out in 2007, it's not that old
|
| display manager vs typing `startx` on login isn't old vs modern
| either
| boberoni wrote:
| Raising a child to use computers via command line is very
| interesting.
|
| I would want my child to be tech-savvy, but most parents I see
| make the mistake of just giving their kids an iPad. I think it's
| very destructive to their attention span.
|
| On the other hand, having a cheap laptop with only access to TUIs
| could be used for improving reading skills and tech literacy. Add
| some TUI games like the good ol' days of BASIC, and it can be
| just as entertaining as an iPad.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| If iPad had ability to act like a screen for RPI that would
| awesome - portable, battery powered, versatile, etc.
| maicro wrote:
| I've installed noVNC on a Pi before, didn't try accessing it
| through an iPad and I don't recall if I was using desktop or
| just terminal, BUT, I think something like noVNC could get
| you close to iPad-as-RPI-screen. Add in some VPN
| functionality and you can keep the Pi running at home, but
| use the iPad anywhere you can get online (though now you're
| getting into diminishing returns).
| vincent-manis wrote:
| I use my iPad Pro as a remote terminal to an RPi 400 and an
| Odroid N2+. Both of these machines are running xrdp, and I
| use the Microsoft Remote Desktop client on the iPad. RDP
| seems somewhat faster than VNC.
| tingol wrote:
| You mean like a laptop?
| enriquto wrote:
| In my case, it started wonderfully, until they learned that they
| could just launch firefox from the terminal, and proceed to
| stupid prank videos on youtube. When they log-in, all that they
| see is an xterm (no menus, no icons). And they just arrow-
| up+enter to run their previous command that is invariably
| firefox. I tried disabling youtube on the hosts file and let them
| figure it out, but apparently is too large a step to make yet.
| Sigh.
| kibwen wrote:
| Don't despair, you're on the right track. You just need to keep
| erecting increasingly elaborate artificial obstacles, one tiny
| increment at a time, and by the time they're teenagers they'll
| be manually linking together their own custom OS from scratch
| every time they want to watch stupid prank videos on their
| homemade reimplementation of Firefox.
| nominusllc wrote:
| mitm their requests and make everything render backwards or
| in 144p. Make it interesting. My parents would give me
| challenges like taking the cord to the computer, and they'd
| find increasingly elaborate improvised power cables. It took
| my mom 5 years to realize why the treadmill only worked
| 'sometimes'.
| stevenalowe wrote:
| That's the saddest thing I've read in a long time. Children
| excited about a mouse ... because they've never used an iPad.
| pomatic wrote:
| (2013) -- it would be interesting to know what became of those
| kids and where they are at today.
| darknavi wrote:
| Some say they are still stuck in VIM after dad wouldn't tell
| them how to exit it.
| gnicholas wrote:
| My kid is never more fascinated than when she sees me inspecting
| HTML or using the terminal. I wouldn't ever push a CLI on her,
| but she is genuinely more interested in learning about computers
| when she's staring at a screen of text she doesn't understand.
| We've started doing an HTML tutorial, and her initial enthusiasm
| seems to have generated enough momentum that she's now excited
| about what we can do using these previously-daunting text-based
| tools.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I also plan on doing this, but haven't had the time yet to put
| together the actual "plan" per se, other than lots of raspberry
| Pis and a screen to connect to in the family room.
|
| My main motivation for doing this, I suppose, is that being a
| millennial I got to straddle the analog-to-digital divide growing
| up, and I think that experience path with technology is healthy
| because you tend to view it as a tool and less so the basis for
| your entire existence.
| txbuck wrote:
| I don't plan on having kids of my own, but if life finds a way
| (or I end up with custody of a relative's children) I figured I
| would similarly put together some kind of loose "curriculum" to
| guide them along if they took an interest in computing. Never
| actually planned it out - is a pretty large domain of knowledge
| to cover for something I don't currently plan on using, but I
| wouldn't be surprised if there are already pre-existing FOSS
| resources along those lines.
|
| Anybody know of any projects in the same vein?
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