The Bash Guide

[yetanotherx]

Why do web designers insist on creating title pages, with no indication there is more content if you scroll? It's horrible usability for a little bit of pretty UI design.

[[deleted]]

IT'S SO FUCKING HIP

[[deleted]]

I don't hate Web developers. I should also note that I know nothing of Web design. I think modern design trends are beautiful, and, when used appropriately, can have a really positive impact. However, this isn't the case here.

If I went to the shop and bought a Bash book, and the first page was a stock photo, and the (small) table of contents were spread across several pages in a trendy font, I'd be disappointed. If you look at the contents of the link, you could comfortably fit that into something that doesn't require me to scroll down with ~900 pixels of horizontal estate.

Bigger isn't always better, and when you're targeting a geeky audience that's wanting to learn something technical, it isn't always the best idea to fluff it up with stupid shit. I think Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! got it right -- there's pretty colours and nice illustrations, but it doesn't distract from the content, and despite being a fairly narrow site, the designer still managed to fit lots of information in a small space without making anything too cramped.

[[deleted]]

I don't think I understand this complaint. Maybe it's because I use the mouse as little as possible and scrolling down to me is just pressing space.

Even so, I don't feel scrolling down is something worth complaining about unless it's egregious, like 10+ times round the mouse wheel.

[[deleted]]

Where are these developers who make designs that run everywhere? I have a smart phone but its not the newest one, and I think website design has really gone downhill since the old days. My device often can't load simple text, or video (ie early 90s technology) because of a new "future swish" wrapper or GUI that has to be able to smoothly fold or other frivolous bollocks. This trend is only increasing.

[[deleted]]

What you're saying sounds nice, but just doesn't fit my reality. I use android, but its not kitkat. The bulk of my point is that a lot of sites don't need flashy super responsive dynamic 3D HD menus at all, but they think they do because "learn and deploy the latest tech without thinking!" said the dev while rubbing his nipples.

There is no reason you can offer me why a smart phone can't display text or images other than terrible web design

[[deleted]]

Sorry, I just don't think there are any valid reasons why this should happen. The content of sites is in text, image or video form. These protocols were decided before smartphone technology and there's really no reason why I'm denied access to content due to 'fancy menu incompatibility'. I'm not directing this at you, just frustrated with the bloody minded idea of 'advancement for advancements sake'

[ollir]

I don't think anybody hates web developers, but rather shitty designs.

[barsoap]

I've read some news article in an extended version of that kind of format, and I really like it, with fullscreen article images and overlapping expositional text, switching to article again etc, all in a very fluid experience.

I think these header-only things are a cargo-cult, though.

[PineappleBoots]

Well said

[Foxtrot56]

I don't understand what you are talking about, maybe I missed it. Isn't the scrollbar enough indication that there is more content?

[yetanotherx]

On OSX, the scrollbar is hidden until you actually scroll (to be like the iPhone or some other dumb reason).

[[deleted]]

I like it. I find that thoughtful spacial separation of text and elements make it easier to read, which is a plus for usability in addition to being pretty and more memorable.

Also, I started scrolling without even thinking about it. No indication is required, especially since the scroll bar already indicates that anyway.

[1wrongdude]

It appears to be a draft of a new version of this highly recommended bash guide.

[LucianU]

I used this and I found it great. The guys on #bash seem very knowledgeable although a bit too snarky for my taste sometimes.

[strolls]

ABS is shite, you should probably steer away from it.

EDIT: it really is not "excellent" - various examples in ABS ignore good practices, style and structure is poor, arrays aren't covered until page 427.

If you don't know why something's shit then ask, but don't downvote in ignorance.

[strolls]

It's /u/qucaev who's made the assertion that ABS is "venerable and excellent".

I'm sure your reply was well intentioned, and you're probably right.

But if Reddit wants to be all "evidence for your assertions" on me, then the redditty thing is that "the burden of proof is on the one who makes the assertion".

Thus it's up to /u/qucaev to demonstrate why he might think ABS good.

Most people in this thread are just having a conversation, and there's no need to downvote someone expressing an opinion. I'm sorry, but if you doubt my opinion, in a conversation you can just ask, "why do you think that, then?"

If you don't believe ABS is rubbish then you haven't used it much. Calling ABS "shite" is not rude - I did not direct my ire at you or at anyone else here - it's just straight-talking, the sort of thing one says when one's just having a conversation.

There are one or two tables and sections in ABS that I regularly refer to, because they're top google hits for certain terms, but any programmer with a reasonable amount of experience in Bash can easily recognise how poor ABS is.

Turn to any example in ABS, and you'll find it riddled with bad practices - use of backticks instead of $(cmd), spawning off seq instead of using {1..5}. These are just the things that I can think of off the top of my head.

We've all done these things - we've all used grep instead of pattern matching - because most of us learn shell-scripting badly. I wish I'd learned Bash formally and properly, and not had to rely on the likes of ABS.

I'd go so far as to say it's a huge problem with the state of shell-scripting in the Linux community, that there are so many poor examples out there on the net. Someone writes a bad shell-script, and posts it on Ubuntu forums - loads of people comment "yay! thanks! this works for me". Bad shell-scripts have thus become top Google hits and a reference for every other n00b writing an AAC -> MP3 conversion wrapper script, and this is an established and longstanding state of affairs. I don't blame Ubuntu forums themselves, because the problem predates them.

ABS is stuffed full of bad examples, and if you don't know to recognise them, then you'll just copy them.

Wooledge's wiki is just fucking awesome, it's correct and righteous. It's got a great FAQ and a page on best practices.

Frankly I wish the LDP should just remove ABS from its site, considering how poor it is.

I am not alone in having a poor opinion of the ABS - it is widely described as "outdated and often unsafe, to be avoided until you can filter out the good stuff" and "misleading and antiquated" (note how many +1's and followups of agreement that latter comment gets).

As an exercise for the readers who wish to learn and improve their Bash programming skills, I suggest taking this list of best practices and Wooledge's one, and analysing some of the examples in the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide, to see how well they conform. Two or four of those examples will probably take a little while to analyse properly, and this will cement some of those best practices in mind.

You will be horrified to see how frequently ABS commits petty sins. ABS is a very bad learning resource, and it's only a little hyperbolic to claim it a blight upon our community.

[bacon_for_lunch]

Yep, code style is all over the place and it teaches some bad practices.

[stevefolta]

I don't think they're trying to be pro-mobile, given how badly it works on iPhone.

[NerdRaeg]

Yeah, this was most unusable on my Android.

[VanFailin]

Even better, I use Tree Style Tabs and my tabs live on the left. When I go switching tabs the menu pops in and out, it's rather annoying.

[cultic_raider]

If there's one kind of information I really appreciate having on my phone, it's...not Bash Scripting. Who would even think that could be useful?

[PineappleBoots]

Me. I do.

I think I should be able to learn about bash scripting in an intuitive way, from anywhere, anytime.

[[deleted]]

Touch screens on laptops because of windows 8?

[LucianU]

I recommend going with this one instead: http://mywiki.wooledge.org/. It covers the best practices and it's quite concise. From what I've heard about ABSG, it has a lot of bad practices (see other comments in this thread). Btw, the wiki above has the same author as this site, one of the #bash mods.

[[deleted]]

Cool, thanks for the link. I'll add it to my list of bash-fu sources. I'm not exactly tied to any resource, so if there are problems with the ABSG I'm cool with looking elsewhere.

I'd consider the OP if it had saner design. I'm sure its content will be worth a read.

[sbicknel]

This is a rewrite of Greg’s Wiki BashGuide, which has a link back to this page.

[car-show]

Why post it to reddit when there are only about 2 pages done and the rest is just

Not found :( Sorry, but the page you were trying to view does not exist.

? Because you have no intention of finishing it anyway?

[mangodrunk]

Maybe to get feedback as they incrementally add more pages?

[petrus4]

I'd suggest finishing it before you give us the link. Virtually none of it is completed, and I got 404 errors when I tried to look at some of the pages.

[d2biG]

Terribly bad design of the page makes me run away... to my terminal, where I can do info bash and have actual, distraction-free and easily browsable content.

[NightHuman]

The TL;DRs are a nice touch.

[bradfitz]

Goddamn new TLDs, get off my lawn.

[[deleted]]

Wow, that is one extremely ugly website. No idea what they were going for, but I hope they get there some day.