frequently participants have trouble with the command line

While we mention the commands to use they are not readily available all the time to the participants, another cheat sheet? Also bash et al. is not intuitive, some things we do not have in the slides but we tend to tell the participants during the course:

• autocompletion
• bash history (cursor and ctrl+r)
• meaning and usage of . ..

Then there are frequent typos and some seemed to be afraid to enter commands. Some did not seem to grasp that the shell is just another tool and they are not restricted to it, e.g. when creating a directory.

I honestly think that we need to spend more time on the command line. Instead of the one slide with the bash commands to copy give them some tasks

• create a project directory with a readme
• rename the directory
• copy file a to b

Maybe this should not be done in the course but a task to be done before the course.

• install git if not already done (here are the instructions)
• open a shell
• read through our bash intro
• complete the listed tasks