IMO the hardest part about teaching digital humanities stuff isn't necessarily the "big tools" stuff, or Python, or whatever. It's the little CLI things. Like:
"hey, do all these XML files use the TaxonX DTD? okay, the DTD is on the second line"
for i in `find . -iname '*.xml'`
do
head -n 2 $i | tail -n 1 | grep -v TaxonX
done
"okay, no output, all good"
I do that kind of crap multiple times a day w/o Googling, it saves *weeks* of my life, and I have *no* idea how to teach it to students.
@tla Six full days! That looks incredible. Bookmarked, thanks for sharing!
@pence Even CS students are often not used to exploring the command line... I also have difficulty with my students (but at least they're open for it).
Do you know the zines written by Julia Evans? I think they are super didactic for learning command line stuff (link when I'm at a computer)
@pence I teach a "computational background skills" bootcamp-style course to try and address these things. Not clear yet how successful it is in the long term, but it certainly makes the first few classes of other DH courses easier. Recent curriculum here: https://github.com/DHUniWien/Teaching_CBS4DH