visualization
Speaking of learning how to wrap my brain around things and trying to figure out how to make things work for me, I think I found what it is really what makes it so difficult for me to work with any sort of terminal setup. I need to be able to make a mental connection between the text lines on the terminal and what's actually happening in the files of the server itself, visually.
Each command line is fleeting, ephemera, it's gone after you close the window, sometimes after it's scrolled too far. You can't see what you did last, you can't cross-reference easily, and it's easy to get lost. I get the same panic feeling working in a terminal setting as I do when I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with a person without being able to see anything. I have to be able to open up the same program and look at the same menus while I walk someone one through it, otherwise, there's nothing to ground me. If I have no references I lose my place all the time, I feel constantly frantic and floaty like grasping at something intangible. Also, my brain just doesn't like it when I can't see everything all at once when I'm troubleshooting, even when organizing stuff physically it can only really do it when I have as much in front of me as possible.
Things clicked for me when I was trying to look up virtual host stuff to try to figure out how to set up another domain. In attempting to see if there was anything I could do to make it work using SCP, I had to figure out where the files for such settings were actually housed. Being able to see where this stuff was, immediately lifted off a significant amount of freezing and intimidation I get with command-line terminal actions. I could finally connect a command-line action, to a specific change the files and exactly where it took place. It was no longer this nebulous thing that just Happens For Some Reason, I knew where to look for the files and had a way to see that they existed at all and what they were named. Now if only I could find tutorials that had side by side comparisons between what you typed into the terminal, and what is going on visually in the files. x_x
At the very least I need to figure out if somehow, somewhere, there's actually a listing for all the default locations new app installs go to. If I at least knew where to look I could try figuring it out from there. I'd still like side-by-side terminal vs visual file system comparisons/guides, but I doubt that'll ever happen. Now to figure out how one backs up and re-deploys a server in case my attempts to work with it ever blow up x_x
Each command line is fleeting, ephemera, it's gone after you close the window, sometimes after it's scrolled too far. You can't see what you did last, you can't cross-reference easily, and it's easy to get lost. I get the same panic feeling working in a terminal setting as I do when I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with a person without being able to see anything. I have to be able to open up the same program and look at the same menus while I walk someone one through it, otherwise, there's nothing to ground me. If I have no references I lose my place all the time, I feel constantly frantic and floaty like grasping at something intangible. Also, my brain just doesn't like it when I can't see everything all at once when I'm troubleshooting, even when organizing stuff physically it can only really do it when I have as much in front of me as possible.
Things clicked for me when I was trying to look up virtual host stuff to try to figure out how to set up another domain. In attempting to see if there was anything I could do to make it work using SCP, I had to figure out where the files for such settings were actually housed. Being able to see where this stuff was, immediately lifted off a significant amount of freezing and intimidation I get with command-line terminal actions. I could finally connect a command-line action, to a specific change the files and exactly where it took place. It was no longer this nebulous thing that just Happens For Some Reason, I knew where to look for the files and had a way to see that they existed at all and what they were named. Now if only I could find tutorials that had side by side comparisons between what you typed into the terminal, and what is going on visually in the files. x_x
At the very least I need to figure out if somehow, somewhere, there's actually a listing for all the default locations new app installs go to. If I at least knew where to look I could try figuring it out from there. I'd still like side-by-side terminal vs visual file system comparisons/guides, but I doubt that'll ever happen. Now to figure out how one backs up and re-deploys a server in case my attempts to work with it ever blow up x_x