Writing at the Command Line
One of my favorite quotes is this one by Manuel Blum:
You are all computer scientists.
You know what FINITE AUTOMATA can do.
You know what TURING MACHINES can do.
For example, Finite Automata can add but not multiply.
Turing Machines can compute any computable function.
Turing machines are incredibly more powerful than Finite Automata.
Yet the only difference between a FA and a TM is that
the TM, unlike the FA, has paper and pencil.
Think about it.
It tells you something about the power of writing.
Without writing, you are reduced to a finite automaton.
With writing you have the extraordinary power of a Turing machine.— Manuel Blum, Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student
Writing is a critically important skill for various reasons. Once you’ve convinced yourself to write, the next question becomes how to write. Writing at the Command Line introduces a handful of workflows, tools, and suggestions for writing in plain text, with a particular emphasis on Markdown.