 So I've talked about before how it is perfectly reasonable for you to expect to use your computer without ever touching the command line and I think that even when it comes to using Linux if you will only use GUI and That's what you prefer and how you prefer to use your computer That's perfectly fine and anyone who judges you for that is just wrong And I try to not be judgy when it comes to what people use because people use what is best for them, right? So I have always argued that Using just the GUI if that's the way you want to go. It's fine. I Have however talked many times over the merits of using the command line and I've talked about how it's more efficient I've talked about how it gives you nerd points. I've talked about which, you know May or may not be, you know, real things I've talked about how if you learn how to use the command line You'll be set to go if you ever experience a situation where you absolutely have to do So, you know, I've talked about all of these things But one of the things that I really haven't talked about that much when it comes to a beginner's experience on Linux or even an experienced user's experience on Linux if I can say experience one more time in that sense I Haven't talked about bash scripting all that much Really because I've always considered it kind of a specialty. It's something that you use if you are a Developer of some kind. It's something that you use if you know what you're doing, right? If you are someone who actually knows bash scripting you use it a lot, right? What that point of view kind of neglects is the thought that even if you don't know a lot of bash learning to bash script even a little bit can Significantly improve your experience on Linux now the reason why I say this is because there are literally no limits when it comes to what you can do with a bash script now, obviously you can do Other things and other languages more efficiently than you can do them in bash in some cases when it comes to more Complex programs, maybe another language would be better But for the most part if you know how to bash script you can do basically anything and that is Amazing now it seems all well and good to say that but at the end of the day You still have to kind of learn it and that hurdle Intimidates people it intimidates me because there's a lot about bash that I don't know I mean, I've barely scratched the surface when it comes to learning how to bash script and even the little bit that I do know I'm not the best at you know, it's you know, I've seen People who really know how to do this stuff do it in such a way that is just mind-blowing and mine looks like a Kindergarner wrote it, you know in that comparison It's you know kind of true, but even with a little bit of bash scripting that I know I Believe that it is one of the most important skills that you can learn on Linux and I want to talk about why I think it's so important because not only Does it allow you to Learn a whole bunch of new stuff that you wouldn't learn otherwise, but it really does help you do things Faster so there are many many it may be infinite examples of this being true So just a couple from my personal experience. So I've written scripts on Browser bookmarks. So I have a browser bookmarking script that I use almost every day Or at least I do now I kind of went away from it for a little while, but I'm back with it now I have a script on downloading Specific audio from a specific site and tagging it. I have a mp3 tagging YouTube script that uses a whole bunch of bash I have a dot file management script that I use every time I install new Linux distribution that links all of my dot files from my repo to the configuration file You know just one right after another These are things that I have to do by hand in the terminal or through a GUI that I've automated With a script. There are other examples as well. So if you distro hop a lot Writing a script to install all of your Commonly used programs will save you a lot of time You don't have to go through and install them one by one by one You can just run the script and it will install The programs that you need having a script that changes your themes. That's something that I've done for I3 It will change all of my themes for poly bar and I3 and Dunst and Roe fee It will do them all at the exact same time and I don't have to do them one by one by one You kind of get the idea by learning how to bash script You can automate parts of your system or part of your workflow that you would otherwise have to do Manual and that can save you loads of time and really that's all it comes down to is saving yourself time now, obviously There is a little bit of a sinkhole here because you still have to learn how to do this This is something that you have to put active effort into learning and that can become a time sink in and of itself because Especially if you're a nerd like me learning how to bash script and learning how to you know program even on the Edges of programming and learning how to use them and all this stuff you can spend a lot of time in there and discover that it's you know kind of fun and You may spend more and more time learning Bash and stuff in less time doing things that are productive with bash if that makes sense now I think that this is a pitfall that a lot of things You know happen to have so I really enjoy Linux a lot of times I spend my time rising when maybe I should be doing other things, you know So that's you know one area where you know despite the fact that Customization on Linux is awesome. Maybe it's become a little bit of a time sink, right? It's the same thing in this situation where it could become a little bit of a time investment if you will for you to you know put effort into and You know, you'll have to put your skills eventually to use in order to make that time spent worthwhile So just kind of a small rambly video for today I think that learning bash scripting is a I don't want to call it a necessity because obviously you can perfectly use Linux or Windows or whatever without ever learning how to program or any in any language whether it's bash or otherwise you can obviously do that It's very easy. You don't have to you don't have to know this But if I were to give the advice to someone who's just learning Linux or Has been looking for ways to improve their workflow My one piece of advice would be to learn how to script either in bash or born shell or whatever Like choose a language learn how to script in it so that you can automate things that you do every day There are any number of examples like I said before of how learning how to script can save you time So I'll just give you a couple more examples So if you've ever used like text expansion on Mac like a text expander You can do that with a bash script if you have certain things that you type all the time like an address or You know an email address or a name or something like that You can assign that to a bash script and then a key binding and have it so that that script always prints that stuff out You know into the clip clipboard you can do that. I mean I've done that for all the descriptions on my video I have a bash script that basically just puts all that stuff into x-clip and it just runs and Allows me to copy and paste that stuff without me having to go find my old description copy and paste it on my own You know it saves a lot of time So like I said, there are tons of examples from very simple things like I do to even more complex stuff that you know other people who know more about bash would do and Learning how to do that is something that can take your workflow from being just okay to Super flow, you know just awesome and efficient and all this stuff So learn how to bash script if you have the interest in doing so I think that it will be nothing but beneficial for you So that's it for this video if you have thoughts on this you can leave those in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you. You can follow me and mess it on our Odyssey Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on patreon at patreon comm slash linux cash Just like all these fine people Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon YouTube you guys are all Absolutely amazing without you the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now So thanks so very very much. I do appreciate it. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time