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HN · ToolsCurated

MIT Hacker Tools for everyday practical computing

Summary

An MIT lecture series teaches the shell, editors, version control, data processing, debugging and automation as connecting craft skills. The series was held at MIT in January 2019. Materials and videos are available free of charge.

Ideas

  • Shell pipelines combine small programs into reusable workflows.
  • Version control makes changes comparable and recoverable.
  • Debuggers replace guesses with observable program state.
  • Profiles show where programs actually spend their time.

Insights

  • Knowledge of tools amplifies every later technical specialisation.
  • Automation pays off particularly for frequent, error-prone manual steps.
  • Good tools shorten the feedback loop between question and evidence.

Facts

  • The later Missing Semester course developed the idea further.

Recommendations

  • Automate one recurring task per week.
  • Keep your shell configuration and editor settings under version control.

References

Read the original article

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