Book Image

The Software Developer's Guide to Linux

By : David Cohen, Christian Sturm
5 (2)
Book Image

The Software Developer's Guide to Linux

5 (2)
By: David Cohen, Christian Sturm

Overview of this book

Developers are always looking to raise their game to the next level, yet most are completely lost when it comes to the Linux command line. This book is the bridge that will take you to the next level in your software development career. Most of the skills in the book can be immediately put to work to make you a more efficient developer. It’s written specifically for software engineers, not Linux system administrators, so each chapter will equip you with just enough theory to understand what you’re doing before diving into practical commands that you can use in your day-to-day work as a software developer. As you work through the book, you’ll quickly absorb the basics of how Linux works while you get comfortable moving around the command line. Once you’ve got the core skills, you’ll see how to apply them in different contexts that you’ll come across as a software developer: building and working with Docker images, automating boring build tasks with shell scripts, and troubleshooting issues in production environments. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to use Linux and the command line comfortably and apply your newfound skills in your day-to-day work to save time, troubleshoot issues, and be the command-line wizard that your team turns to.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
18
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19
Index

Vi(m)

Vi (often referred to as ex-vi or nvi) is a command-line text editor. Vim (vi iMproved) is an extended version, that many people use as an entire IDE. vi and vim share the same basic commands and keyboard bindings, so if you just learn the basics, you’ll be fine no matter what kind of ancient or modern system you log in to.

Fair warning: vim is complicated and has a relatively steep learning curve. It’ll probably take a few weeks of spare time studying and experimenting to get comfortable with it – comparable to setting up your first Linux web server or writing your first 500-line program.

The wonderful thing about learning vim is that you can use it locally on your laptop or remotely on a server that has no GUI, and the editing experience is the same – beautifully efficient – in both places. To use it effectively, both a shift in mindset and an understanding of its vocabulary (the commands and modes we’ll get into) are important...