2013 Resolutions: a man page a day makes the newb go away (opens in new tab)

I felt like I was forgetting 90% of the stuff I read in man pages too and I probably did. But reading them once showed me some of the possibilities those nifty little tools have. Sometimes when I approach a problem I remember one or two things I didn't know before. Even though I don't remember them exactly, I still know about their existence and can easily look them up again.

When I have some spare time on my hands I like to skim manuals for those features. Vim for example, I have been learning continuously ever since I first used it and I dare to say that by now, I know a bit about it. However, I never sat down trying to memorize everything but kept skimming the help every now and then and when I found something cool I just tried to start using it. Some things I've forgot, others stuck.

I guess that's just the way I learn.

This is why I try to focus on books with exercises and force myself to finish all the exercises - "Thinking in C++" (volumes 1 and 2) was especially good for this. If nothing else, typing in examples helps. Also, try slowing down and forcing yourself to think of better/alternate ways to do something. Just having read the docs, your mind will be more open to using different options, and by forcing yourself to do it differently (even if you have to look it up again), will help to reinforce.

Agreed. I've had the same demoralizing experience with books and manuals in the past. What I really hope to do after reading each manual page is use it throughout the day wherever I can. Someone else also suggested reading some StackExchange questions on each command. I think that will be beyond valuable, and provide some real world uses that I can add to my toolbelt.

Don't laugh.

My ultimate goal in life is to write software for satellites, space probes or planetary rovers. I want my code in space. It's a pretty advantageous goal, but with hard work I can do it.

There is a Canadian company that is currently hiring for my dream position: http://www.mscinc.ca/about/MS-engineer.html

I'd like to help further Canada's contribution to space science.

I'm currently taking my first year of Computer Science. Getting really good at C is something I feel like I should start now. Then I'll need to get good at embedded C and eventually start looking at the VxWorks operating system since it seems like that's what most probes or satellites use. But that's for the future.

So far the plan is to start with "man" and then go through the man pages of my most commonly used commands: cd, ls, grep, cat, sed, etc.

After that, I may write a little shell script that simply opens one at random for me.

> The place where I struggle is the day-to-day tasks, and I still haven't found the answer.

One thing that worked for me (but I accept it might not work for everyone) that was given me by an occupational therapist was to break everything down into tiny tasks.

Thus, not "I will wash the dishes", but "I will gather everything that needs washing." then "I will scrape them off" and "I will clean the sink" then "I will put dishes in sink with hot hot water and dish soap" then "I will scrub them and let them drain" then "I will dry them" finally "I will put them away". Each task is small and easily achievable, even if it's a tough day. And doing one small task gives you a small sense of achievement, and gets you moving around. That might be enough for you to continue doing things, or you might decide that's enough for the day. But at least you've stopped things going backwards, and started making progress.

Another thing that helped me was having a rigid structure. Thus, Thursday is always "take the trash out". But don't overload each day with tasks. Just put 2 tasks per day, and make sure you include 1 thing for you each day.

I guess these are more useful when days are tough, rather than just everyday.

I too, seem to struggle with the day to day tasks. I hope that by publicly announcing my goals, it will make it slightly easier.

I also tried to break down my daily tasks into something that is actually manageable. I feel like many people, when breaking down their goals, tend to overload themselves or put themselves into a routine they simply can't manage or maintain for long periods of time.

Some tasks contribute directly to goals, other tasks just get you through the day.

Don't know what to make of that, other than to think that those two types of tasks are probably managed differently, and they probably give you different emotional payoff.

Vim is too big to learn. Eventually you'll muscle-memory a set of actions, for the way that you uniquely use vim, that you don't even know how to explain without thinking about it.

Rather than trying to go through one end of a tutorial or reference to the other (don't know if that's you), find a site or two of vim tips, and let them randomly trigger your mind. I think it's more interesting than going through anything beyond page/chapter 1 of a reference.

Coupled with that, whatever you find yourself doing in vim, take some time to understand what it is and the alternatives. Becoming familiar with :help's table of contents, rather than the contents of every chapter, is probably helpful here.

Similarly, when you do something accidentally, try to understand what happened. Sometimes you'll discover a feature. q: for example is discovered by accident by many people, including me.

I second taking notes as you go, here are mines (from 2 years ago, in french): https://github.com/romainl/dotvim/wiki/Notes

Bram Moolenaar's seven habits has great insights about this subject: http://www.moolenaar.net/habits.html

That's what I had planned. Thanks for creating an outline for me. ;)

Thanks for the advice. I've already gone through K&R, but I just got the C Answer Book in the mail a couple months back and wanted to go through all the exercises again. I'll just have to really pace myself and not take in more information than I can handle in a single day.

The StackExchange idea is excellent. I'll get a sense of how the command should be used in real environments.

I'll definitely check out 'apropos'. :)

Best of luck to you! I think it's really important to actually apply new knowledge to your everyday workflow. It's far too easy to go and read a book, blog post, or article and then just let that information go to waste.

Hah! 'electronic flower of information'. Awesome.

p.s. I'm from Winnipeg, the city Winnie the Pooh is named after.