1LEARN(1) General Commands Manual LEARN(1)
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6 learn - computer aided instruction about UNIX
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9 learn [ -directory ] [ subject [ lesson ] ]
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12 Learn gives Computer Aided Instruction courses and practice in the use
13 of UNIX, the C Shell, and the Berkeley text editors. To get started
14 simply type learn. If you had used learn before and left your last
15 session without completing a subject, the program will use information
16 in $HOME/.learnrc to start you up in the same place you left off. Your
17 first time through, learn will ask questions to find out what you want
18 to do. Some questions may be bypassed by naming a subject, and more
19 yet by naming a lesson. You may enter the lesson as a number that
20 learn gave you in a previous session. If you do not know the lesson
21 number, you may enter the lesson as a word, and learn will look for the
22 first lesson containing it. If the lesson is `-', learn prompts for
23 each lesson; this is useful for debugging.
24 The subject's presently handled are
26 files
28 editor
29 vi
30 morefiles
31 macros
32 eqn
33 C
34 There are a few special commands. The command `bye' terminates a learn
36 session and `where' tells you of your progress, with `where m' telling
37 you more. The command `again' re-displays the text of the lesson and
38 `again lesson' lets you review lesson. There is no way for learn to
39 tell you the answers it expects in English, however, the command `hint'
40 prints the last part of the lesson script used to evaluate a response,
41 while `hint m' prints the whole lesson script. This is useful for
42 debugging lessons and might possibly give you an idea about what it
43 expects.
44 The -directory option allows one to exercise a script in a nonstandard
46 place.
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49 /usr/share/learn subtree for all dependent directories and files
50 /usr/tmp/pl∗ playpen directories
51 $HOME/.learnrc startup information
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54 csh(1), ex(1)
55 B. W. Kernighan and M. E. Lesk, LEARN - Computer-Aided Instruction on
56 UNIX
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59 The main strength of learn, that it asks the student to use the real
60 UNIX, also makes possible baffling mistakes. It is helpful, especially
61 for nonprogrammers, to have a UNIX initiate near at hand during the
62 first sessions.
63 Occasionally lessons are incorrect, sometimes because the local version
65 of a command operates in a non-standard way. Occasionally a lesson
66 script does not recognize all the different correct responses, in which
67 case the `hint' command may be useful. Such lessons may be skipped
68 with the `skip' command, but it takes some sophistication to recognize
69 the situation.
70 To find a lesson given as a word, learn does a simple fgrep(1) through
72 the lessons. It is unclear whether this sort of subject indexing is
73 better than none.
74 Spawning a new shell is required for each of many user and internal
76 functions.
77 The `vi' lessons are provided separately from the others. To use them
79 see your system administrator.
807th Edition October 22, 1996 LEARN(1)