the terminal feels like kind of a weird thing to learn because
a) learning some of the "fundamentals" (like the roles of the terminal emulator / shell / operating system / libc / individual programs) is definitely pretty helpful
b) BUT I feel like ultimately I need to memorize solutions to a bunch of different problems, and understanding the “fundamentals" often doesn't help me figure out those solutions out on my own
Do you have examples of solutions that are hardest to come up with using just the understanding how things work? I wonder if these are mostly things where Yet Another tool is helpful, where a tool has a somewhat hidden feature/option, or something else.
@robryk maybe a better example is how `rm -file.txt` won't remove a file called `-file.txt`
it's pretty easy to understand *why* that problem is happening, but even if you understand why it's happening I don't think the solutions (`rm -- -file.txt`, `rm ./file.txt`) are that obvious, I'm not sure if I personally would have thought of them if someone didn't tell me
@robryk one example is "output from a command getting buffered and not immediately landing in your redirection target" -- like I have a somewhat reasonable understanding of flushing / how buffering interacts with libc
but that doesn't help me thaaat much to navigate the world of possible solutions (unbuffer`, `stdbuffff`, etc) -- I have to kind of just try stuff and see what works