Re: meta question about learning Unix, PATH, HOME, and ~

Rather than trying to respond to individual parts of your 
interesting message, Beartooth, here are a few thoughts that I 
had while reading it.

* Hanging out in Unix land is a great way to hone one's 
analytical skills so I can easily appreciate why someone who was 
attracted to mathematics & logic would also be attracted to Unix 
(and not be attracted to MS operating systems (Apple is another 
story for another thread)).

* Maybe in the future we will teach children "critical thinking" 
or "analytical thinking" or "how to think" by teaching them 
Unix. This might be in addition to, or instead of, some of the 
mathematics that is currently taught to children. The advantage 
of teaching Unix to children is that it is actually useful to 
them *immediately*. I.e., because they can start playing with it 
on a computer and making the computer do things with little Unix 
scripts. (I wonder if anyone is doing Unix with children 
already?)

* Learning and using Unix as an adult is a constant reminder to 
your brain about the importance of thinking carefully and 
precisely. I appreciate what you said about commands being 
"lifeless," but I think it's important to balance the big bright 
hot world of art [1] with the cold world of the command line. 
It's important because it keeps your brain from turning to mush 
and also because it helps you to perceive the 
cold/precise/analytical aspects of art. Also note that the 
command-line world is not completely cold and there is art that 
emerges from it.

* I think you should definitely check out those Unix philosophy 
books I mentioned in the "PATH, HOME, and ~" thread!

[1] By "art" I mean art/literature/etc.


    --Nancy