The intended audience of this book are all those who want to get a better understanding of their computers. Those who wish to use Bash effectively and with confidence.

The ignorant 'clicking of buttons' has done much disservice to these laudable ambitions over the past four decades or so. It is time to rediscover the ancient lore! You, too, will become a wizard of retro programming, massively increase your productivity and gain true ownership of your device.

This book is for you if in the past you got waylayed and discouraged from programming, if you never even started or if you ever thought: "surely, there must be a simpler way of doing this!".

Above all, what you may discover here is that one most rare and precious thing: understanding.

This book is definitely not another boring reference manual. Real programming is a skillful art. This applies especially to programming in Bash. Art is not easily learnt from manuals. Not even from pedagogically perfectly organised treatises full of exhortations and exercises. Manuals are for looking things up, same as are search engines on the internet. By all means, look things up as and when needed but read this first.

This book is based on the author's lifetime experience with using and teaching numerous programming languages. The experience has shown that the most effective way to learn programming is by playing with fun examples.

Examples from cheat sheets, examples of 'boiler plate', examples of powerful techniques that actually accomplish useful things, examples of advanced tips and tricks, examples of amazing solutions to interesting problems. Examples, examples, examples.

It is playing with those inspiring snippets of code that brings on the 'heureka' moments, when we want to shout:

"Wow, I did not know that!"

"So, this is how to do it! Yes, now I really get it!"

"What fun, let me try this myself!"

"Hey, now I can just change this a bit and it will solve my own fascinating problem!"