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The Unix Chainsaw - Gary Bernhardt

timmonta · talk · Watch on YouTube

Testing, debugging & developer toolsOperating systems & kernels

What it is

Gary Bernhardt's Cascadia Ruby Conference 2011 talk on using the Unix shell for practical problem solving. He builds pipelines interactively by iterative refinement, using small tools as levers.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended as a brilliant demonstration of how to think in Unix pipelines.

  • 2 people recommended it
  • 2 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2016, last 2022

What HN commenters said

  1. “No absurd wit as in wat. Simply brilliant.”

    Shows how to use tiny unix tools as levers on themselves.

    agumonkey, 2016-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Programming blogs”

  2. “gave a great talk about practical problem solving with the unix shell”

    Demonstrates building unix pipelines interactively by iterative refinement.

    pdkl95, 2019-02 · Strong recommendation · in “Problem solving with Unix commands”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: unix, pipelines, command line, gary bernhardt, shell workflow

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