Abstract:
The Unix Operating System has been around since the 1960s and has provided the backbone for the modern "Internet."
The core of the Unix and Linux experience is the command line shell. This powerful text based interface can be leveraged to automate tasks and solve problems that would be too tedious to tackle. The Born Again Shell is available on all Unix and Linux platforms. A clear understanding of the features of the shell along with a basic set of commands can improve your productivity and change the way you implement solutions to text based problems.
Eric will provide an overview of how his Unix/Linux classroom has evolved over 26 years. From the blackboard handwritten lecture in a room without computers to modern classroom with a computer on every desk. Through it all, the common set of command line capabilities has remained a staple in the Unix/Linux mindset. sed, grep, cut, tr, and awk are tools that can be combined to transform the simplest of users into a "Power User".
Bio:
Eric Danielson was first exposed to FORTRAN as part of a Saturday high school program at JPL. Before that, he hadn't been exposed to computers except for watching his father open up a briefcase sized modem to transfer files using the house phone handset. The Saturday class would walk onto the JPL campus and sit at someone's desk to log into a VAX terminal to edit, compile and run FORTRAN77 code.
Eric has since earned a B.S. in General Engineering from Harvey Mudd College and a M.S. in Computer Science from USC. Eric started working at JPL as a summer student. At that time, he was running radiative transfer code (FORTRAN) and supporting a science team. After the brand new Sun Microsystem workstations were installed in the Science Division computer lab, Eric took some evening classes at Glendale College that included C Programing and Unix Shell Programming. Soon after, a co-worker and mentor at JPL encouraged Eric to take over his teaching workload at Glendale College. An increase in his JPL travel schedule was making it difficult to continue teaching. Eric started teaching BASIC Programming and FORTRAN in 1989. He eventually took over the Unix class and has since added the Unix/Linux System Administration class to the Glendale College curriculum.
Eric is currently the Science Data System (SDS) System Engineer for the Multi- angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on the Terra Earth Observing System satellite and the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument currently in development.
Eric enjoys tinkering with Raspberry Pis and Arduinos in the creative realm of "Makers". His recent projects include a portable air quality monitor and a time-lapse camera with a Raspberry Pi.
