3. Dos and don’ts

[status: not yet written]

DO: Know your lineage. For example, I come from a tradition, and if you like to learn from what I am telling you here then you are part of that tradition. The tradition comes largely from the hackers at MIT who had early access to computers and created the environment of technical excellence that my mentors taught me. [citation to Levy’s book “Hackers”]

DO: Only run free software.

DO: Have a space on the web where you can put things for others to download (see what github and bitbucket offer as literal web sites).

DO: Have a space on the web where people can upload things for you.

DO: Be aware of many programs rather intimately. Curate your own collection. It should overlap with others (everyone will know grep, for example), but it should also reflect what you have found when you formed your list (for example, only some people might be ready to use the options for ffmpeg without looking them up).

DO: Make sure that you occasionally go down a rabbit hole. Every year or so spend a couple of days chasing some goal in customizing your system, or writing a program, that seems to have nothing to do with your job.

DON’T: Don’t go down those rabbit holes too often!

DON’T: Never, ever, ever, ever put spaces and other fancy characters into filenames. File names should consist of upper case letters, lower case letters, underscores, hyphens and periods. Nothing else.

Endnote:

Vis-a-vis spelling of “Dos and don’ts”, see: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/dos-and-donts