What is the best way to learn bash scripting?
What is a script? Imagine a movie theater where different actors are performing. How do they know their part of acting? It’s because they have a script which tells them how to act. Similarly, a computer performs what a script dictates, and a bash shell performs what a bash script dictates.
Why Bash?
Why bash when you can run commands into the command line? Correct, you can run commands in the command line. But there is a limit to it. If you want to run multiple commands simultaneously or put process automation into action, bash scripting is the best choice available.
How can you learn bash?
In a nutshell, go to google, start searching, start reading, practicing and learning bash. There are tens of platforms from where you can read and collect information about bash. However, all of that can be painful as you have to read from different places on the internet, and you still may not be able to grab the core and basic bash concepts, which are vital to your future understanding of advance bash scripting. To get the best understanding of bash scripting in a very short period of time, you can take our 4 hours bash Bootcamp by visiting our online course
One of the best ways to learn and understand any programming language is to do a lot of examples. The same is true for bash scripting; if you want to understand bash better, you need to do many examples after covering the basics. You can cover these 30 Bash Script Examples to understand bash better.
Let’s say that you are a total beginner. In that case, it will take you less than 24 hours to be able to start writing your bash scripts. The recommendation is not to dwell upon the information you acquire and absorb enough information to get started, and once you start to write scripts, you will start to learn faster.
Bash Blueprint
Here is your blueprint for learning bash; if you are a complete beginner, these are the overall steps you need to cover while learning bash:
1- Getting Started
Linux and macOS already have bash installed. If you have windows, then make sure you install bash first.
2- Getting Familiar with Command Line
The best way to learn to work in the command line is to practice and work with many different commands. You can cover 100 Essential Linux Commands for Every User topic to go through this step.
3- Writing & Executing Bash Scripts
Once you are familiar with the command line, learn to write and execute bash scripts. I recommend you take a good course on bash that covers basics and some of the intermediate-level scripts. The best example of such a course is Bash Scripting Full Course 3 Hours.
4- Get Creative & Practice
If you want to become good at anything, practice is the way to go. Take courses, read the articles mentioned above, get creative, think outside the box, and try to create your bash scripts. This step will make you feel confident in the terminal.
Conclusion
Bash programming is essential if you want to learn to communicate with the operating system. You can write bash scripts to run multiple commands simultaneously and automate processes that you can’t in the command line interface. The best way to learn bash is to learn the command line first and then work on writing bash scripts. You can take a good bash course and practice writing scripts as much as possible.
