The VI editor, in the directory, with the pipe

Do you remember playing Clue? Of course you do, and so do I. Do you remember announcing to your competitors, "I suggest that..." with a smug look on your face, then opening the envelope and discovering that you were dead wrong? And then feeling inadequate to the challenge of the game, and realizing that maybe you're not as good as you thought, and deciding that everything you thought you knew about the world was in fact, a horrible lie?

Me, neither.

But I felt a little bit like that this week! I, the person my family and friends turn to with computer problems, know now, with firm conviction, that I am an absolute idiot! Or, at least, that I've got a ways to go in learning about Linux.

This week I used the VIM editor, and wheeeeeeee! Not really sure what I was doing in there, haha, but I did go through the tutorial step by step and did very well at the exercises. My favorite little personal triumph was using a number followed by "GG" to get me back to where I was when I exited. "Oh, I think I was at around 600," I'd muse to myself, typing in 600 GG!! I still do not know if I believe the tutor when it assured me that I would eventually LOVE the H, J, K, and L directionals. Hmph, if you say so. I shall trust in the process.

I felt pretty proud of myself, hitting "i" to insert and "a" to append. I followed all the directions and felt pretty good about understanding until I took a step back and thought... Where am I in the computer? What am I doing? When I make a file in VIM, where is it? What is the difference between : and ! ??  I can do what the tutor wants me to but I can't understand why! I need my dunce cap now. Hopefully, I can take it off in a few weeks, as it all starts to make sense. (Trust the process, trust the process.)

Still, I must claim a small victory. Back in the shell, I decided to try using the pipe in a command. Nothing fancy, something simple.

cd lib | ls -l

And what happened? In one fell swoop, I changed the directory to lib AND listed the contents with their permissions.

VICTORY IS MINE! 

IN YOUR FACE, COL. MUSTARD!