This handy tips file was created to share a link to the "Missing Semester" project at MIT: https://missing.csail.mit.edu/. The rationale the course developers gave was:
Classes teach you all about advanced topics within CS, from operating systems to machine learning, but there’s one critical subject that’s rarely covered,
and is instead left to students to figure out on their own: proficiency with their tools.
We’ll teach you how to master the command-line, use a powerful text editor, use fancy features of version control systems, and much more!
Students spend hundreds of hours using these tools over the course of their education
(and thousands over their career), so it makes sense to make the experience as fluid and frictionless as possible.
Mastering these tools not only enables you to spend less time on figuring out how to bend your tools to your will,
but it also lets you solve problems that would previously seem impossibly complex.
This was the schedule of lectures in 2020:
1/13/20: Course overview + the shell
1/14/20: Shell Tools and Scripting
1/15/20: Editors (Vim)
1/16/20: Data Wrangling
1/21/20: Command-line Environment
1/22/20: Version Control (Git)
1/23/20: Debugging and Profiling
1/27/20: Metaprogramming
1/28/20: Security and Cryptography
1/29/20: Potpourri
1/30/20: Q&A