Linux Literacy 101

If you don't know Linux, you're missing out! Today's dominant server-side operating system is successful not only because it's open source, but because it is a joy to use. The Unix philosophy is one of reuse, of not repeating yourself, and of breaking problems down to their smallest parts. Sound familiar? Application architects and developers have a lot to gain from Linux literacy, and those lessons can be applied to software architecture, to microservice design, and to tools productivity.

This workshop will assume little knowledge about Linux. We'll jumpstart in to a Linux distribution running on our own laptops, and get quickly in to the shell. We'll explore the richness of a text-based interface and the enormous variety of tools available to developers and administrators. The building-block philosophy of Linux will become clear as we practice using pipes, redirects, regular expressions, and other text utilities. I'll arm you with some of the coolest tips and tricks you've seen, and you'll leave with a healthy respect for this operating system, capable of navigating it on your laptop, in the server room, or in the cloud.

About Danny Brian

Danny Brian got his programming start as a backend developer, wrangling Perl to do all sorts of things for which it was never intended. He wrote some books on software development and document-oriented databases. Eventually he found his true calling: Front-end development. In this “new career” Danny has worked as a designer, Flash developer, and application architect. Today Danny's projects include mobile game development with both HTML5 and the Unity platform. His goal? “To build stuff that people actually like, that stick around for more than a few years, and to help others do the same.”

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