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#+startup: beamer
#+TITLE: Computational Symbiosis: Methods That Meld Mind and Machine
#+AUTHOR: Mike Gerwitz
#+EMAIL: mtg@gnu.org
#+DATE: LibrePlanet 2019
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \title{Computational Symbiosis}
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \subtitle{Methods That Meld Mind and Machine}
#+OPTIONS: H:3 num:nil toc:nil p:nil todo:nil stat:nil
#+LaTeX_CLASS: beamer
#+LaTeX_CLASS_OPTIONS: [presentation]
#+BEAMER_THEME: Madrid
#+BEAMER_COLOR_THEME: beetle
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \input{slides-preamble.tex}
#+TODO: DEVOID(v) LACKING(l) RAW(r) DRAFT(d) AUGMENT(A) REVIEWED(R) | READY(,) REHEARSED(.)
#+COLUMNS: %40ITEM %10DURATION{:} %8TODO %BEAMER_ENV(ENVIRONMENT)
* Project Notes :noexport:
** Core Guidelines
- Blur distinction between user and programmer.
- Use only examples that non-programmers could come up with and understand.
- GUIs /are/ sometimes the most efficient means of melding mind and machine.
- De-emphasize doing everything on a terminal just because its "cool".
** Concepts [15/27]
- [ ] =/sys= and such
- [ ] Automating multi-step workflows with GNU Make
- [X] Concurrency ([[*Program Composition]])
- [X] Connecting graphical and command line (X11 integration) [4/4]
- [X] Clipboard (image) ([[*More Examples]])
- [X] Clipboard (text) ([[*Program Composition]])
- [X] X11 commands
- [X] Interesting example idea: =import=, =tesseract ss.png - | xsel -ib=
so that you can select an area of text on the screen and perform
OCR, then have the result on your clipboard ([[*More Examples]])
- I've never done this, but it goes to show how trivial it is to
create something that is seemingly novel.
- [ ] Discoverability
- Example: I used GIMP for editing some images for this talk because I
thought it'd be faster to discover how to that way vs. ImageMagick docs.
- [ ] Editor should keep up with your thoughts
- Emphasize muscle memory
- [-] Efficiency gains of light use of keybindings [2/3]
- [X] Seldom change ([[*Browser Topics][Browser Topics]])
- [X] Some are universal (between programs) ([[*Browser Topics][Browser Topics]])
- [ ] Some context-sensitive and Just Work without having to hunt through
context-specific menus
- [ ] Emphasize free software community and how OS is built by so many
contributors
- Symbiosis is not only with machine, but community
- [X] Globbing
- [X] GnuPG and smart cards ([[*More Examples]])
- [X] Incremental, iterative, interactive development ([[*Program Composition]])
- [X] Looping ([[*Perspective Topics][Perspective Topics]])
- [ ] McIlroy and Knuth
- [X] Mouse has dependency on positioning of UI elements ([[*Browser Topics][Browser Topics]])
- Changes over time, subject to user/system preferences, etc
- [ ] Multiplexing with GNU Screen
- [X] Output redirection ([[*A New Perspective]])
- [ ] Phone as an example of a device that best works with touch and GUIs
and sacrifices practical freedom.
- Requires specialized knowledge and is inconvenient to work with.
- [X] Pipelines instead of intermediate files ([[*Perspective Topics][Perspective Topics]]).
- [X] Practically exercising software freedom [2/2]
- [X] Users need to be able to convey their thoughts to the computer
without being programmers
- [X] Concise primitives / building blocks
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- [ ] Readline (history and editing) [0/2]
- [ ] Develop as you go, perhaps just referencing history early on
- [ ] Transfer commands from history into scripts and aliases for re-use
- [X] Regular expressions ([[*Perspective Topics][Perspective Topics]])
- [X] Remote commands via SSH
- [X] Text as a universal interface
- [X] All programs can work with one-another ([[*Perspective Topics][Perspective Topics]])
- [X] Can replace any part of the process with a human---no difference
between input from a program vs. from a keyboard. ([[*Browser Topics][Browser Topics]])
- [X] The Unix Philosophy ([[*Perspective Topics][Perspective Topics]])
- [X] Using keybindings in a GUI with no mouse ([[*Browser Topics][Browser Topics]])
- Including transferring data between programs
- [ ] Using macros to script keypresses (Vim)
- [ ] Version control
** Programs [0/4]
- [-] Coreutils / Common [12/15]
- [X] =cut=
- [ ] =column=
- [ ] =diff=
- [X] =echo=
- [X] =find=
- [X] =gpg=
- [X] =grep=
- [ ] =make= / Makefiles
- [X] =man= and =info=
- [X] =sort=
- [X] =ssh=
- [X] =uniq=
- [X] =watch=
- [X] =wc=
- [X] =wget= / =curl=
- [-] Miscellaneous [5/8]
- [ ] =awk=
- [X] =cowsay= / =figlet=
- [ ] =dict=
- [X] =espeak=
- [ ] =git=
- [X] =mail=
- [X] =torify=
- [X] =sed=
- [-] X11 / Graphical [3/5]
- [X] =convert=
- [ ] =i3= / =xmonad= / etc
- [X] =import=
- [ ] =setxkbmap=
- [X] =xclip= / =xsel=
- [ ] Editors / Multiplexing [0/4]
- [ ] =emacs=
- [ ] =nano=
- [ ] =vim=
- [ ] =screen=
* REHEARSED Slides [5/5]
:PROPERTIES:
:ID: slides
:END:
** Summary :noexport:
#+BEGIN: columnview :hlines 2 :maxlevel 3 :indent t :id slides
| ITEM | DURATION | TODO | ENVIRONMENT |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| Slides | 0:39:53 | REHEARSED | |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| \_ Summary | | | |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| \_ Introduction | 0:01:24 | REHEARSED | |
| \_ Spoken Intro | 0:00:25 | REHEARSED | note |
| \_ Choreographed Workflows | 00:00:20 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Practical Freedom | 0:00:40 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| \_ Practical Example: Web Browser | 0:06:34 | REHEARSED | |
| \_ Browser Topics | | | |
| \_ Example: Web Browser | 0:00:10 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Finding Text (Mouse-Driven GUI Interaction) | 0:01:00 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ GUIs Change Over Time | 0:00:45 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Muscle Memory | 0:00:40 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ A Research Task | 0:00:20 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Executing the Research Task | 0:02:05 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ GUIs of a Feather | 0:00:35 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Macro-Like Keyboard Instructions | 0:01:00 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| \_ A New Perspective | 0:12:48 | REHEARSED | |
| \_ Perspective Topics | | | |
| \_ Secrets? | 0:00:55 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Lifting the Curtain | 0:00:35 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Text | 0:00:35 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Text is a Universal Interface | 0:01:10 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ The Shell Command Prompt | 0:00:55 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Eliminating the Web Browser | 0:01:04 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Browser vs. =wget= Comparison | 0:00:20 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Finding Text on the Command Line | 0:01:00 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ A More Gentle Reply | 0:01:00 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Writing to Files (Redirection) | 0:00:55 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Starting Our List | 0:01:00 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Command Refactoring | 0:02:05 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Again: Text is a Universal Interface | 0:00:20 | REHEARSED | againframe |
| \_ Pipelines | 0:00:15 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Summary of the Unix Philosophy | 0:00:40 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| \_ Program Composition | 0:09:15 | REHEARSED | |
| \_ Composition Topics | | | |
| \_ LP Sessions | 0:02:30 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Interactive, Incremental, Iterative Development | 0:01:10 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Discovering URLs | 0:02:15 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Go Grab a Coffee | 0:00:15 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Async Processes | 0:00:45 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Executable Shell Script and Concurrency | 0:01:30 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Execution Time | 0:00:50 | REHEARSED | frame |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| \_ More Examples | 0:09:52 | REHEARSED | |
| \_ More Example Topics | | | |
| \_ Resize Images | 0:00:30 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Password Generation | 0:00:45 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Password Manager | 0:01:39 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Remote Password Manager With 2FA | 0:01:30 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Taking Screenshots | 0:00:35 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Screenshot OCR | 0:01:00 | REHEARSED | frame |
| \_ Full Circle | 0:02:24 | REHEARSED | fullframe |
| \_ Getting Help | 0:01:30 | REHEARSED | frame |
|-------------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------------|
| \_ Thank You | 00:00:01 | | fullframe |
#+END:
** REHEARSED Introduction [3/3]
*** REHEARSED Spoken Intro :B_note:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: note
:DURATION: 0:00:25
:END:
Hello, everyone!
My name is Mike Gerwitz.
I am a free software hacker and activist with a focus on user privacy and
security.
I'm also a GNU Maintainer and volunteer.
I have about twenty years of programming experience,
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half of that professionally.
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And I've been a computer user for longer.
So I've been around long enough to see a decent evolution in how we interact
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with machines.
*** REHEARSED Choreographed Workflows :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:DURATION: 00:00:20
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Choreographed Workflows
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**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:END:
What we have tended toward over the years are interfaces that try to cater
to as many people as possible by providing carefully choreographed
workflows that think /for/ you.
And I don't deny that this has been a useful method for making computers
accessible to huge numbers of people.
But it's important to understand where this trend falls short.
*** REHEARSED Practical Freedom :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Practical Freedom
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**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
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:DURATION: 00:00:40
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:END:
This is a talk about /practical/ freedoms---an
issue separate from but /requiring/ software freedom.
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If developers are thinking /for/ us and guiding us in our computing,
then we're limited to preconceived workflows.
This leaves immense power in the hands of developers even if software is
free,
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because average users are stuck asking them to implement changes,
or footing the bill for someone else to do so.
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My goal here is to blur those lines between ``user'' and ``programmer'' and
show you how users can be empowered to take control of their computing in
practical and powerful ways.
But it does require a different way of thinking.
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To begin,
let's start by exploring something that I think most people can relate to
using.
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** REHEARSED Practical Example: Web Browser [8/8]
*** Browser Topics [3/3] :noexport:
This example is the main segue from GUIs into the utility of keybindings
into shell, so it has to be compelling. I chose something that is
frequently done by users: visiting webpages and searching for text.
- [X] Most webpages include styling, images, and other media that are best
represented in a GUI.
- Of course, I'm a firm believer in progressive enhancement, but this
isn't a web development talk.
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- [X] Is it good for finding a word or phrase on a page? [4/4]
- [X] Menu -> Find in This Page -> Type. Sure.
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- [X] Instructing a user how to do this is inherently visual. Comment on
my need to highlight areas of screenshots.
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- [X] More experienced users may prefer =C-f=.
- Emphasize the motion with my hand. Explain how that mental association
is made. Really focus on this.
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- [X] Location of menu has changed over time (show screenshots), but =C-f=
has been unchanged for decades.
- [X] What if I had a list of five webpages and I wanted to get rid of the
ones that didn't have that word? [4/4]
- [X] Mouse and GUI way:
- Open each page in a new tab.
- Menu -> Find on page -> Type.
- Found, copy URL, open a word processor, paste.
- Go back, click X on the tab.
- Repeat.
- [X] Then show keybinding way:
- *Demonstrate this on the LP laptop.*
- Open programs with =M-F2=
- Open each page in a new tab (=C-t=)
- =C-f ESC=
- =C-l C-c=
- =M-TAB C-v RET=
- =M-TAB C-w=
- Repeat
- [X] This would work with nearly /any/ combination of web browser and
text editor.
- [X] But what if I had 10? 100? 1000? This is still tedious and slow.
*** REHEARSED Example: Web Browser :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
[[file:images/web-browser.png]]
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:10
:END:
The only GUI I use on a day-to-day basis is my web browser.
In this case,
GNU Icecat,
which is a Firefox derivative.
This is a screenshot of an admittedly staged session,
and contains a number of addons.
*** REHEARSED Finding Text (Mouse-Driven GUI Interaction) :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
**** Images :B_columns:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: columns
:END:
***** Left :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.30
:END:
#+ATTR_LATEX: :width 1.5in
[[file:images/ff-find-menu.png]]
***** Right :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.70
:END:
#+ATTR_LATEX: :width 3in
[[file:images/ff-find-matches.png]]
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:00
:END:
A common operation is to search for a word or phrase,
like shown here.
Now,
how exactly to do this with a mouse varies depending on what browser
you're using,
but here I highlighted the steps in a modern IceCat or Firefox.
You start by clicking on the little hamburger, hotdog, or
whatever-you-want-to-call-it menu in the upper-right,
and then click on "Find in This Page" within the popup.
This then opens a bar at the bottom of the page with an area to type the
word or phrase you're searching for.
It highlights and scrolls to the first match as you type,
and has a button to highlight all results.
It also shows the number of results off to the right.
It's a simple,
yet powerful mechanism that is pretty easy to use.
Is this an efficient means to communicate your intent?
If you're just searching for a name or concept,
sure,
it's not so bad.
But notice how I had to convey these steps to you.
I had to take screenshots and highlight where to click with the mouse.
Since a GUI is inherently very visual,
so are the instructions on how to use it.
There is no canonical representation for these instructions,
because it involves clicking on elements that have no clear name to the
user.
*** REHEARSED GUIs Change Over Time :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
**** Images :B_columns:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: columns
:END:
***** Left :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.50
:END:
#+ATTR_LATEX: :width 1.5in
[[file:images/ff-find-menu.png]]
***** Right :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.50
:END:
#+ATTR_LATEX: :width 1.5in
[[file:images/ff-edit-find.png]]
#+BEAMER: \uncover<2>{\Large
Ctrl+F
#+BEAMER: }
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:45
:END:
Another difficult thing is: GUIs change over time.
I'm sure many people here remember earlier versions of Firefox that didn't
have the hamburger menu,
where the Find menu option was in the Edit menu.
Those old menus do still exist if you hit Alt.
I miss the old menus.
Saying "Go to Edit - Find" is pretty clear,
and those menu positions were always in the same place across the entire
desktop environment.
Now individual programs may vary in the their user experience.
But do you notice something in common between these two screenshots?
There's something that /hasn't/ changed over time---something
that has been the same for /decades/!
=Ctrl+F=.
When you type =Ctrl+F=,
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it immediately opens that search bar and gives focus to the textbox,
so you can just start typing.
*** REHEARSED Muscle Memory :B_fullframe:
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:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Muscle Memory
#+BEAMER: \fullsubtext
Visual \Rightarrow Tactile
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:40
2019-03-05 01:06:02 -05:00
:END:
With a mouse and a GUI,
interaction is driven by visual indicators.
The position of your hand on the mousepad or your fingers on a touchpad
isn't meaningful,
because your mouse cursor could be anywhere on the screen at any given
time;
your /eyes/ provide the context.
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But by hitting =Ctrl+F=,
we have switched our mode of interaction.
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It's now /tactile/.
You associate a finger placement;
a motion;
and the feeling of the keys being pressed beneath your fingers
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with an action---finding
something.
You develop muscle memory.
/<Repeatedly make motion with hand and fingers like a madman during the
above paragraph.>/
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*** REHEARSED A Research Task :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Research Task:
#+BEAMER: \fullsubtext
Given a list of webpage URLs
#+BEAMER: \smallsubskip
find all that /do not/ contain ``free software''
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:20
:END:
Let's explore a fairly simple research task together.
Let's say I email you a handfull of URLs---maybe
5 or 10 of them---that
are articles about software or technology.
And I want you to come up with a list of the webpages that /do not/ contain
the phrase ``free software'' so that I can get a better idea of ones to
focus my activism on.
How might we approach this problem as an average user?
*** REHEARSED Executing the Research Task :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
**** Approaches :B_columns:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: columns
:END:
***** Mouse :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.50
:END:
_Mouse_
1. Click `+' for each new tab, enter\nbsp{}URL
2. Menu \rightarrow Find in This Page
3. Type ``free software''
4. If found, go to #9
5. If /not/ found, highlight URL, right-click, copy
6. Click on text editor
7. Right-click, paste URL, hit =RET= for newline
8. Click on web browser
9. Click `X' on tab, go to #2
******* Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:15
:END:
/(Perhaps I should demonstrate this right away rather than reading through
the list first, to save time?)/
Let's first use the mouse as many users probably would.
To set up,
let's open each URL in a new tab.
We click on the little `+' icon for a new tab and then enter the URL,
once for each webpage,
perhaps copying the URL from the email message.
Once we're all set up,
we don't care about the email anymore,
but we need a place to store our results,
so we open a text editor to paste URLs into.
Now, for each tab,
we click on the little hamburger menu,
click on ``Find in This Page'',
and then type ``free software''.
If we /do not/ see a result,
we move our mouse to the location bar,
click on it to highlight the URL,
right-click, copy,
click on the text editor to give it focus,
right-click on the editor, ``Paste'',
and then hit the return key to move to the next line.
We then go back to the web browser.
If we /do/ see a result,
we skip copying over the URL.
In either case,
we then close the tab by clicking on the `X'.
And then we repeat this for each tab,
until they have all been closed.
When we're done,
whatever is in our text editor is the list of URLs of webpages that do not
reference ``free software'',
and we're done.
Simple enough,
right?
But it's a bit of a pain in the ass.
All this clicking around doesn't really /feel/ like we're melding mind and
machine, does it?
What if we used our =Ctrl+F= trick?
That saves us a couple clicks,
but can we do better?
***** Keyboard :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.50
:END:
#+BEAMER: \uncover<2>{
_Keyboard_
1. *=Ctrl+T=* for each new tab, enter\nbsp{}URL
2. *=Ctrl+F=* to find
3. Type ``free software''
4. If found, go to #9
5. If /not/ found, *=Ctrl+L Ctrl+C=* to copy URL
6. *=Alt+Tab=* to text editor
7. *=Ctrl+V RET=* to paste URL and add newline
8. *=Alt+Tab=* to web browser
9. *=Ctrl+W=* to close tab, go to #2
#+BEAMER: }
******* Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:50
:END:
Fortunately we have /many/ more keybindings at our disposal!
We'll start with opening each new tab with =Ctrl+T= instead of clicking on
`+' with the mouse.
/(Maybe show copying the URL from the email without the mouse?)/
To open our text editor,
we'll use =Alt+F4=.
Once we're all set up,
we start with the first tab and use =Ctrl+F= as we've seen before,
and then type ``free software''.
If we /do not/ find a match,
we're ready to copy the URL.
Hitting =Ctrl+L= will take us to the location bar and highlight the URL.
We can then hit =Ctrl+C= to copy the URL to the clipboard.
=Alt+Tab= to go to our text editor.
We then paste with =Ctrl+V= and hit return to insert a newline.
We can then go back to the web browser by hitting =Alt+Tab= again.
We then close the tab with =Ctrl+W=.
Repeat, and we're done all the same as before.
As a bonus,
save with =Ctrl+S=.
What's interesting about this approach is that we didn't have to use the
mouse at all,
unless maybe you used it to highlight the URL in the email.
You could get into quite the rhythm with this approach,
and your hands never have to leave the keyboard.
This is a bit of a faster,
more efficient way to convey our thoughts to the machine,
right?
We don't have to seek out our actions each time in the GUI---the
operations are always at our fingertips,
literally.
*** REHEARSED GUIs of a Feather :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Same Keybindings Across (Most) GUIs!
#+BEAMER: \fullsubtext
Browser, Editor, Window Manager, OS, \ldots
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:35
:END:
Another powerful benefit of this approach is---these
/same exact keybindings work across most GUIs/!
If we switch out Icecat here with nearly any other major web browser,
and switch out gedit with many other text editors or even word processors,
this will work all the same!
If you use Windows instead of GNU/Linux---which
I strongly discourage, but if you do---then
it'll work the same.
Certain keybindings are ubiquitous---if
you hit =Ctrl+F= in most GUI programs that support searching,
you'll get some sort of context-specific search.
Let's look at those keybindings a bit more concisely,
since that last slide was a bit of a mess.
*** REHEARSED Macro-Like Keyboard Instructions :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \begingroup\fullslidetext
Macro-Like
#+BEAMER: \endgroup\subskip
#+BEGIN_SRC
Ctrl+T ``https://...'' <N times>
Ctrl+F ``free sofware''
[ Ctrl+L Ctrl+C Alt+Tab Ctrl+V RET Alt+Tab ]
Ctrl+W
<N times>
#+END_SRC
- <2> /Requires visual inspection/ for conditional
- <2> Still manual and tedious---what if there were 1000 URLs?
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:00
:END:
If we type out the keybindings like this,
it looks a bit more like instructions for the machine,
doesn't it?
Some of you may be familiar with macros---with
the ability to record keypresses and play them back later.
If we were able to do that,
could we automate this task away?
Unfortunately...no.
At least,
not with the tools we're using right now.
Why is that?
Well,
for one,
it requires visual inspection to determine whether or not a match has
occurred.
That drives conditional logic---that
bracketed part there.
We also need to know how many times to repeat,
which requires that we either count or watch the progress.
And we need to be able to inspect the email for URLs and copy them into the
web browser.
This also scales really poorly.
While using the keyboard is certainly faster than using the mouse,
we're only dealing with a small set of URLs here.
What if I gave you 100 of them?
1000?
More?
Suddenly this doesn't feel like a very efficient way to convey our intent to
the machine.
I don't wish that suffering upon anyone.
To get around that,
we need to change how we think about our computing a bit.
** REHEARSED A New Perspective [15/15]
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
*** Perspective Topics [13/13] :noexport:
- [X] What if I could walk away and get a coffee, play with the kids,
come back and have it done for me?
- Emphasize how users familiar with the tools I haven't yet mentioned
may know how to do this, but people who don't know of Unix tools
will still be thinking in terms of the UI, trying to figure out how
to automate it.
- [X] Right-click on page and inspect an element.
- Briefly mention DOM and how this represents the current state of
the page.
- Maybe show how it can be modified to illustrate the structure better.
- But I don't want to get too deep into this.
- [X] Right-click on page and View Source.
- Explain how this is like the source code to the webpage (HTML).
- [X] Copy text into editor, =C-f=.
- We can still find the text /using the same keybinding/.
- [X] Save HTML file.
- [X] Demonstrate opening it in a web browser vs. an editor.
- Same exact document, different ways of rendering it.
- [X] Open a terminal [4/4]
- [X] Type =wget URL=
- [X] Show how it downloaded a file
- [X] Open it in a text editor, show how the text is there. =C-f=.
- We eliminated the web browser
- [X] =grep word file.html=
- We have just eliminated =Ctrl+F= in the editor.
- [X] But it's too verbose, so show =grep -q && echo=.
- Talk about echo and exit status briefly, but don't go into exit codes.
- [X] The goal is to output a URL to a file
- Introduce redirection (overwrite and append)
- [X] Now we have duplication: URL in two places
- Introduce variables
- [X] Eliminate the temporary file entirely using a pipe
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
- [X] Alias =fetch-url= for =wget -qO-=.
- [X] Introduce the Unix philosophy
*** REHEARSED Secrets? :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
# Slide intentionally left blank
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:55
:END:
So what if I told you that I could go grab some coffee and play with my kids
and come back later to a list that has been generated for me by an
automated process?
And what if I told you that it'd only take a minute or two to for me to
create this process?
And that you don't need to be a programmer to do it?
Well if I told you that then you'd be pretty pissed at me for sending you
1000 URLs.
So I would never do that.
This is where the whole concept of ``wizardry'' comes in.
Some of you are sitting in the audience or watching this remotely rolling
your eyes thinking ``oh this guy thinks he's so sweet'',
because the answer is obvious to you.
But to those of you who are confined to the toolset that I just
demonstrated...it's
/not/ going to be obvious.
The problem is that there is a whole world and way of computing that is
hidden from most users.
And it's not hidden because it's a secret.
It's because modern interfaces have come to completely mask it or provide
alternatives to it that happen to be ``good enough'' for a particular use
case.
But ``good enough'' is only good enough until it's not,
until you need to do something /outside/ of that preconceived workflow.
*** REHEARSED Lifting the Curtain :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
**** Columns :B_columns:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: columns
:END:
***** Left :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.30
:END:
[[file:images/ff-view-source-menu.png]]
***** Right :B_column:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: column
:BEAMER_col: 0.70
:END:
[[file:images/ff-view-source.png]]
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:35
:END:
Let's lift the curtain,
so to speak,
on what's really going on in the web browser.
Right-click on the webpage and select "View Page Source" from the
context menu.
You get a new tab containing the raw code behind the document.
Most of it, anyway.
It is a document language called HTML.
And as you may have noticed,
it's plain text.
Structured, but plain, text.
And as you can see,
if we hit =Ctrl+F=,
``free software'' is there all the same.
We don't need to view the webpage with all its fancy formatting.
For the problem we're trying to solve,
the graphical representation provides little benefit.
*** REHEARSED Text :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Text.
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:35
:END:
As we're about to see,
this simple fact---that
that the webpage is represented by plain text---opens
up a whole new world to us.
We have stripped away all the complex visual GUI stuff and we're left with
the raw substance of the page which still contains the information that we
are looking for.
But we're still within the web browser.
We don't have to be.
We can copy all of that text and paste it into our editor.
=Ctrl+A Ctrl+C Alt-Tab Ctrl+V=.
And sure enough,
search works all the same.
=Ctrl+F= and we can still find ``free software''.
Completely different program,
and we can still find the text using the same keybinding.
*** REHEARSED Text is a Universal Interface :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Text is a Universal Interface
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:10
:END:
Text is a universal interface.
And what I mean by that is---you
don't need any special tools to work with it.
You can view it in your web browser.
You can view it in your text editor.
You can paste it in a text message.
You can print it in a book.
You can write it down on a paper and type it back into your computer.
Text is how we communicate with one-another as human beings.
Let's save this HTML as a file,
=speakers.html=.
If we opened this file,
it would open in our web browser and we would see the same webpage,
although it would look a bit different since a lot of the styling is
stored outside of this HTML file.
But if again we opened this HTML file in our text editor,
you would see that same plain text HTML as before;
one program just chooses to render it differently than another.
Even though we can view the HTML in our text editor,
we haven't yet eliminated the web browser;
we still need it to navigate to the webpage and view its source.
But if that's all we're using the web browser for,
then it's one hell of an inefficient way of telling the computer that we
just want the HTML document at a certain URL.
Up until this point,
the keyboard has been used as a secondary interface---as
an /alternative/ to something.
Now we're going to venture into a world where it is /the/ interface.
*** REHEARSED The Shell Command Prompt :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
mikegerwitz@lp2019-laptop:~$
# ^ user ^ host ^ working directory (home)
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \begin{uncoverenv}<2->
#+BEAMER: \subskip
This presentation will show:
#+BEAMER: \medskip
#+BEGIN_SRC
$ command
output line 1
output line 2
...
output line N
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{uncoverenv}
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:55
:END:
If you open a VTE,
or virtual terminal emulator,
you will be greeted with a curious string of characters.
This is a /command prompt/.
The program that is prompting you for a command is called the /shell/.
The GNU shell is =bash=,
which is the default on most GNU/Linux systems.
Since we're talking about freedom in your computing,
I hope that you'll try bash on an operating system that respects your
freedom to use, study, modify, and share its software,
like a GNU/Linux distribution.
This laptop here runs Trisquel.
Bash is also the default on Mac OSX,
but the rest of the operating system is non-free;
you have no freedom there.
And Windows now has something they call
``Bash on Ubuntu on Windows'',
which just is GNU running atop of the proprietary Windows kernel.
You can do better that that!
When I present commands here,
the command line we are executing is prefixed with a dollar sign,
and the output immediately follows it,
like so.
*** REHEARSED Eliminating the Web Browser :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ wget https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \begin{uncoverenv}<2->
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
--2019-03-24 00:00:00-- https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
Resolving libreplanet.org (libreplanet.org)... 209.51.188.248
Connecting to libreplanet.org (libreplanet.org)|209.51.188.248|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: index.html
...
2019-03-24 00:00:00 (1.78 MB/s) - index.html saved [67789]
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{uncoverenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{uncoverenv}<3>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ wget -O speakers.html \
https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{uncoverenv}
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:05
:END:
Alright!
The goal is to retrieve the HTML file at a given URL.
GNU/Linux distributions usually come with GNU =wget=,
which does precisely that.
To invoke it,
we type the name of the command,
followed by a space,
followed by the URL we wish to retrieve,
and then hit enter.
What follows is quite a bit of text.
The details aren't particularly important as long as it's successful,
but notice that it says it saved to =index.html=.
That's not intuitive to those who don't understand why that name was used.
So let's tell =wget= what file we want to output to.
We do this with the =O= option,
like so.
It takes a single argument,
which is the name of the output file.
The backslash here allows us to continue the command onto the next line;
otherwise, a newline tells the shell to execute the command.
So remember previously that we manually created =speakers.html= by viewing
the source of the webpage in a web browser and saving it.
If we open this file,
we'll find that it contains /exactly the same text/ as when we manually
did it,
and we never had to open a web browser.
And we can search it all the same as before for ``free software''.
*** REHEARSED Browser vs. =wget= Comparison :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC
Ctrl+L ``https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/''
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \subskip
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ wget https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
#+END_SRC
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:20
:END:
This is a very different means of interacting with the computer,
but if we compare this with the keyboard shortcut used previously,
they are very similar.
Not so scary,
right?
It's hard to imagine a more direct line of communication with the computer
for downloading a webpage,
short of reading your mind.
*** REHEARSED Finding Text on the Command Line :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ grep 'free software' speakers.html
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \begin{uncoverenv}<2->
\vdots
#+BEGIN_SRC
<p>Mike Gerwitz is a free software hacker and activist with a focus on
exclusively free software. Mike spends most of his free time with his
#+END_SRC
\vdots
#+BEAMER: \end{uncoverenv}
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:00
:END:
Not having to open a web browser is nice,
but having to open the downloaded HTML file just to search it is a bit of
a pain;
is there a command that can help us there too?
We want to know whether a page contains the term ``free software''.
For that we use a tool called =grep=.
The first argument to =grep= is the search string,
and the remaining arguments---just one here---tell it where it should
search.
The first argument to =grep= is quoted because it contains a space.
You'll get a bunch of output;
I just included a small snippet here.
But notice how it happens to include exactly the text we were looking at in
the web browser.
And with that we have replicated =Ctrl+F=.
But did we do a good job conveying our thoughts to the machine?
We just wanted to know whether the page /contains/ the phrase,
but we don't care to see it!
So while we have efficiently /conveyed/ a search string,
we didn't receive an efficient /reply/---it's
information overload.
*** REHEARSED A More Gentle Reply :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ grep --quiet 'free software' speakers.html && echo yes
yes
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \subskip
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<2>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ echo 'Hello, world!'
Hello, world!
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<3>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ grep --quiet 'open source' speakers.html || echo no
no
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:00
:END:
First we tell =grep= to modify its behavior with the =quiet= flag.
You can also use the short form,
which is just =-q=.
Rather than outputting results,
=grep= will exit silently and it will instead return a status to the shell
that says whether or not the search failed.
POSIX-like shells,
like Bash,
offer the ability to say ``run this next command if the previous
succeeds'',
and this is done by putting two ampersands between the commands.
The command to run if =grep= succeeds in finding a match is =echo=.
All echo does is takes its arguments and spits them right back out again as
output.
So this essentially states:
``search for `free software' in =speakers.html= and output `yes' if it is
found''.
Since =echo= is its own command,
it also works by itself.
Here's the classic ``hello, world'' program in shell.
But if you recall our research task,
it was to search for pages that do /not/ contain the term ``free
software''.
We can do that too,
by using two pipes in place of two ampersands.
*** REHEARSED Writing to Files (Redirection) :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
- Commands write to standard out (stdout) by default
- /Output redirection/ writes somewhere else
#+BEAMER: \subskip
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
# overwrites each time
$ echo 'Hello, world!' > hello.txt
$ echo 'Hello again, world!' > hello.txt
# appends (echo adds a newline)
$ echo 'First line' >> results.txt
$ echo 'Second line' >> results.txt
#+END_SRC
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:55
:END:
Alright, we're well on our way now!
But we still haven't gotten rid of that damn text editor,
because we need to save a list of URLs to a file to hold our final
results!
Well as it so happens,
writing to a file is such a common operation that it's built right into
the shell.
We use a feature called /redirection/.
There are two types of output redirection.
If you place a single greater-than symbol followed by a filename after a
command,
then the output of that command will replace anything already in the
file.
So the result of the first two commands will be a =hello.txt= that contains
only a single line:
``Hello again, world!''.
The second type,
which uses /two/ greater-than symbols,
/appends/ to the file.
=echo= by default adds a newline,
so the result of the second two commands is a =results.txt= containing two
lines,
``First line'' and ``Second line'' respectively.
If the file doesn't yet exist,
it will be created.
*** REHEARSED Starting Our List :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ wget --quiet -O speakers.html \
https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
&& grep --quiet 'free software' speakers.html \
|| echo https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
>> results.txt
#+END_SRC
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:00
:END:
Take a look at that for a moment.
/<pause ~5s>/
Can anyone tell me in just one sentence what the result of this command line
will be?
/<pause ~5s>/
/<react appropriately>/
As exciting as it is to start to bring these things together,
the result is pretty anti-climatic---we
know that =speakers.html= /does/ contain the string ``free software'',
and so the result is that =results.txt= contains /nothing/!
In fact,
if =results.txt= didn't exist yet,
it still wouldn't even exist.
At this point,
we have successfully eliminated both the web browser and text editor.
But this is a hefty command to have to modify each time we want to try a
different URL.
*** REHEARSED Command Refactoring :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<6>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
# original:
$ wget --quiet -O speakers.html \
https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
&& grep --quiet 'free software' speakers.html \
|| echo https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
>> results.txt
#+END_SRC
\subskip
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<1>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
$ URL=https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
$ wget --quiet -O speakers.html \
"$URL" \
&& grep --quiet 'free software' speakers.html \
|| echo "$URL" \
>> results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<2>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
$ URL=https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
$ wget -qO speakers.html \
"$URL" \
&& grep -q 'free software' speakers.html \
|| echo "$URL" \
>> results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<3>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
$ URL=https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
$ wget -qO - \
"$URL" \
| grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL" \
>> results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<4>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
$ URL=https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
$ wget -qO - "$URL" \
| grep -q 'free software' || echo "$URL" >> results.txt
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<5->
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ alias fetch-url='wget -qO-'
$ URL=https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/
$ fetch-url "$URL" \
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
| grep -q 'free software' || echo "$URL" >> results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:02:05
:END:
We can simplify it by introducing a /variable/.
First we assign the URL to a variable /named/ URL.
We then reference its value by prefixing it with a dollar sign everywhere
the URL previously appeared.
We put it in quotes just in case it contains special characters or
whitespace.
We can also make this command line a bit more concise by using the short
name for the =--quiet= flag,
which is =-q=.
Notice how in =wget= I combined them into =-qO= instead of using two
separate dashes with spaces between them,
but you don't have to do this.
Something else feels dirty.
We're creating this =speakers.html= file just to pass to =grep=.
It's not needed after the fact.
In fact,
it's just polluting our filesystem.
What if we didn't have to create it at all to begin with?
I'm first going to introduce the notation,
and then I'll go into why it works.
If we replace the output file =speakers.html= with a single dash,
that tells =wget= to write to standard out.
This is normally the default behavior of command line programs,
like =grep= and =echo=,
but =wget= is a bit different.
We then omit the =speakers.html= from =grep= entirely.
=grep= will read from standard in by default.
We then connect standard out of =wget= to the standard in of =grep= using a
/single/ pipe, not double;
this is called a /pipeline/.
Now that we've freed up some characters,
let's reformat this slightly to be a bit more readable.
And that =wget= command looks a bit cryptic.
2019-03-10 23:18:05 -04:00
How about we define an alias so that it looks a bit more friendly,
and then we can stop worrying about what it does?
Now here's the original command we started with,
and where we're at now.
This little bit of abstraction has made our intent even more clear.
It can now clearly be read that we're defining a URL,
retrieving that URL,
searching for a term,
and then appending it to a file on a non-match.
By the way,
for privacy reasons,
you can prefix `wget` with `torify` to run it through Tor,
if you have it installed.
But before we keep going,
I want to go back to a point I mentioned previously.
*** REHEARSED Again: Text is a Universal Interface :B_againframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: againframe
:BEAMER_ref: *Text is a Universal Interface
:BEAMER_act:
:END:
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:20
:END:
Text is a universal interface.
Notice how we started out our journey manually inspecting text,
and began replacing the human part of the workflow at each step with a
command.
That's because text is something that both humans and computers can work
with easily.
This is a fundamental design principle in the Unix tools that I have begun
to present to you.
*** REHEARSED Pipelines :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
/``Expect the output of every program to become the input to another''/
#+BEAMER: \fullsubtext\hfill
---Doug McIlroy (1978)
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:15
:END:
The invention of the Unix pipe is credited to Doug McIlroy.
As part of the Unix philosophy,
he stated:
``expect the output of every program to become the input to another''.
More broadly,
the Unix philosophy can be summarized as:
*** REHEARSED Summary of the Unix Philosophy :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:DURATION: 0:00:40
:END:
#+BEAMER: \begingroup\fullslidetext
The Unix Philosophy
#+BEAMER: \endgroup\subskip
#+BEGIN_QUOTE
This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it
well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text
streams, because that is a universal interface.
#+BEAMER: \smallsubskip\hfill---Doug McIlroy
#+END_QUOTE
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:40
:END:
/<Read it>/
Up until this point,
we have changed how we communicate with the machine by moving away from a
visual interface driven primarily by movement,
to a textual interface that puts mind and machine on equal footing.
And now here we're talking about another profound shift in how we think.
We start to think of how to decompose problems into small operations that
exist as part of a larger pipeline.
We think of how to chain small, specialized programs together,
transforming text at each step to make it more suitable for the next.
** REHEARSED Program Composition [7/7]
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
*** Composition Topics [6/6] :noexport:
- [X] Clarify how pipelines work with existing =wget | grep=.
- [X] More involved pipeline with more than two programs.
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- [X] Emphasize iterative development and how the shell is a REPL.
- Useful for programmers for prototyping and debugging, but also essential
to average users for discovery.
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- Evolve by making portions of command dynamic (variables, subshells)
- [X] Now script discovering what pages contain a certain word [3/3]
- [X] Mention previous example of being emailed a list of URLs. Rather
than pasting them into a file, let's discover them using the same
tool: =grep=. Save email to a file.
- [X] =grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+'=, show how it gets a list of URLs.
- [X] Introduce =while= and =read=, showing how we can iteratively run
commands, maybe =... | while read url; do echo "URL: $url"; done=.
- Not enough talk time to walk away and get a coffee, but let's see if
we can maybe let it run for 10--30s while I blabber on. Depends on
the connection speed at MIT with all the participants.
- [X] Extract =url-grep= into script.
- [X] Demonstrate running jobs in parallel with =xargs=.
*** REHEARSED LP Sessions :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ fetch-url https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
| grep -A5 speaker-header \
| head -n14
<header class="keynote-speaker-header" id="garbee">
<hgroup>
<h2>Bdale Garbee</h2>
</hgroup>
</header>
<p><em>Closing keynote</em></p>
--
<header class="keynote-speaker-header" id="loubani">
<hgroup>
<h2>Tarek Loubani</h2>
</hgroup>
</header>
<p><em>Opening keynote (Day 1)</em></p>
--
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ fetch-url https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
| grep -A5 speaker-header \
| grep '<em>'
<p><em>Closing keynote</em></p>
<p><em>Opening keynote (Day 1)</em></p>
<p><em>Opening keynote (Day 2)</em></p>
[...]
<p><em>The Tor Project: State of the Onion</em> and <em>Library Freedom Institute: A new hope</em></p>
<p><em>The Tor Project: State of the Onion</em></p>
[...]
<p><em>Large-scale collaboration with free software</em></p>
<p><em>Large-scale collaboration with free software</em></p>
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ fetch-url https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
| grep -A5 speaker-header \
| grep -o '<em>[^<]\+</em>'
<em>Closing keynote</em>
<em>Opening keynote (Day 1)</em>
<em>Opening keynote (Day 2)</em>
[...]
<em>The Tor Project: State of the Onion</em>
<em>Library Freedom Institute: A new hope</em>
<em>The Tor Project: State of the Onion</em>
[...]
<em>Large-scale collaboration with free software</em>
<em>Large-scale collaboration with free software</em>
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ fetch-url https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
| grep -A5 speaker-header \
| grep -o '<em>[^<]\+</em>' \
| sort \
| uniq -cd
2 <em>Hackerspace Rancho Electrónico</em>
4 <em>Large-scale collaboration with free software</em>
2 <em>Library Freedom Institute: A new hope</em>
2 <em>Right to Repair and the DMCA</em>
2 <em>Teaching privacy and security via free software</em>
2 <em>The joy of bug reporting</em>
5 <em>The Tor Project: State of the Onion</em>
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ fetch-url https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
| grep -A5 speaker-header \
| grep -o '<em>[^<]\+</em>' \
| sort \
| uniq -cd \
| sort -nr \
| head -n5
5 <em>The Tor Project: State of the Onion</em>
4 <em>Large-scale collaboration with free software</em>
2 <em>The joy of bug reporting</em>
2 <em>Teaching privacy and security via free software</em>
2 <em>Right to Repair and the DMCA</em>
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ fetch-url https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
| grep -A5 speaker-header \
| grep -o '<em>[^<]\+</em>' \
| sort \
| uniq -cd \
| sort -nr \
| head -n5 \
| sed 's#^ *\(.\+\) <em>\(.*\)</em>#\2 has \1 speakers#'
The Tor Project: State of the Onion has 5 speakers
Large-scale collaboration with free software has 4 speakers
The joy of bug reporting has 2 speakers
Teaching privacy and security via free software has 2 speakers
Right to Repair and the DMCA has 2 speakers
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ fetch-url https://libreplanet.org/2019/speakers/ \
| grep -A5 speaker-header \
| grep -o '<em>[^<]\+</em>' \
| sort \
| uniq -cd \
| sort -nr \
| head -n5 \
| sed 's#^ *\(.\+\) <em>\(.*\)</em>#\2 has \1 speakers#'
| espeak
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:02:30
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
:END:
Let's look at a more sophisticated pipeline with another practical example.
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I noticed that some LibrePlanet sessions had multiple speakers,
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and I wanted to know which ones had the /most/ speakers.
The HTML of the speakers page includes a header for each speaker.
Here are the first two.
=-A5= tells =grep= to also output the five lines following matching lines,
and =head -n14= outputs only the first fourteen lines of output.
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We're only interested in the talk titles, though.
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Looking at this output,
we see that the titles have an =em= tag,
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so let's just go with that.
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Pipe to =grep= instead of =head=.
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It looks like at least one of those results has /multiple/ talks,
if you can see the ``and'' there.
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But note that each is enclosed in its own set of =em= tags.
If we add =-o= to =grep=,
which stands for /only/,
then it'll only return the portion of the line that matches,
rather than the entire line.
Further,
if there are multiple matches on a line,
it'll output each match independently on its own line.
That's exactly what we want!
But we have to modify our regex a little bit to prevent it from grabbing
everything between the first and /last/ =em= tag.
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Don't worry if you don't understand the regular expression;
they take time to learn and tend to be easier to write than they are to
read.
This one just says ``match one or more non-less-than characters between =em=
tags''.
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Now assuming that the talk titles are consistent,
we can get a count.
=uniq= has the ability to count consecutive lines that are identical,
as well as output a count.
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We also use =-d= to tell it to only output duplicate lines.
But =uniq= doesn't sort lines before processing,
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so we first pipe it to =sort=.
That gives us a count of each talk!
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But I want to know the talks with the /most/ speakers,
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so let's sort it /again/,
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this time numerically and in reverse order,
and take the top five.
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And we have our answer!
But just for the hell of it,
let's go a step further.
Using =sed=,
which stands for /stream editor/,
we can match on portions of the input and reference those matches in a
replacement.
So we can reformat the =uniq= output into an English sentence,
like so.
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I chose the pound characters delimit the match from the replacement.
The numbers in the replacement reference the parenthesized groups in the
match.
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And then we're going to pipe it to the program =espeak=,
which is a text-to-speech synthesizer.
Your computer will speak the top five talks by presenter count to you.
Listening to computers speak is all the rage right now,
right?
*** REHEARSED Interactive, Incremental, Iterative Development :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Incremental Development
#+BEAMER: \fullsubtext
Interactive REPL, Iterative Decomposition
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
2019-03-15 23:49:15 -04:00
:DURATION: 00:01:10
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
:END:
Notice how we approached that problem.
I presented it here just as I developed it.
I didn't open my web browser and inspect the HTML;
I just looked at the =wget= output and then started to manipulate it in
useful ways working toward my final goal.
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This is just /one/ of the many ways to write it.
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And this is part of what makes working in a shell so powerful.
In software development,
we call environments like this REPLs,
which stands for ``read-eval-print loop''.
The shell reads a command line,
evaluates it,
prints a result,
and then does that all over again.
As a hacker,
this allows me to easily inspect and iterate on my script in real time,
which can be a very efficient process.
I can quickly prototype something and then clean it up later.
Or maybe create a proof-of-concept in shell before writing the actual
implementation in another language.
But most users aren't programmers.
They aren't experts in these commands;
they have to play around and discover as they go.
And the shell is perfect for this discovery.
If something doesn't work,
just keep trying different things and get immediate feedback!
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And because we're working with text as data,
a human can replace any part of this process!
*** REHEARSED Discovering URLs :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
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$ grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' email-of-links.txt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
https://opensource.org/about
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
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$ grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' email-of-links.txt \
| while read URL; do
echo "URL is $URL"
done
URL is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
URL is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
URL is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
URL is https://opensource.org/about
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
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$ grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' email-of-links.txt \
| while read URL; do \
fetch-url "$URL" | grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL \
done \
> results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
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$ grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' email-of-links.txt \
| while read URL; do \
fetch-url "$URL" | grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL" \
done \
| tee results.txt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
https://opensource.org/about
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
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$ grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' email-of-links.txt \
| while read URL; do \
fetch-url "$URL" | grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL" \
done \
| tee results.txt
| xclip -i -selection clipboard
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
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$ grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' email-of-links.txt \
| while read URL; do \
fetch-url "$URL" | grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL" \
done \
| tee >( xclip -i -selection clipboard )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
https://opensource.org/about
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ xclip -o -selection clipboard \
| grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' \
| while read URL; do \
fetch-url "$URL" | grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL" \
done \
| tee >( xclip -i -selection clipboard )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
https://opensource.org/about
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ xclip -o -selection clipboard \
| grep -o 'https\?://[^ ]\+' \
| while read URL; do \
fetch-url "$URL" | grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL" \
done \
| tee results.txt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
https://opensource.org/about
$ xclip -i -selection clipboard < results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:02:15
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
:END:
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Okay, back to searching webpages.
Now that we have a means of creating the list of results,
how do we feed the URLs into our pipeline?
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Why not pull them right out of the email with =grep=?
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Let's say you saved the email in =email-of-links.txt=.
This simple regex should grab most URLs,
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but it's far from perfect.
For example,
it'd grab punctuation at the end of a sentence.
But we're assuming a list of URLs.
Here's some example output with a few.
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For each of these,
we need to run our pipeline.
It's time to introduce =while= and =read=.
=while= will continue to execute its body in a loop until its command fails.
=read= will read line-by-line into one or more variables,
and will fail when there are no more lines to read.
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So if we insert our =fetch-url= pipeline into the body,
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we get this.
For convenience,
let's use =tee=,
which is named for a pipe tee;
it'll send output through the pipeline while also writing the same
output to a given file.
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So now we can both observe the results /and/ have them written to a file!
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But we were just going to reply to an email with those results.
Let's assume we're still using a GUI email client.
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Wouldn't it be convenient if those results were already on the clipboard for
us so we can just paste them into the message?
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We can accomplish that by piping to =xclip= as shown here.
Ah, crap, but now we can't see the output again.
Do we really need the results file anymore?
Rather than outputting to a file on disk with =tee=,
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we're going to use a special notation that tells bash to invoke a command
in a subshell and replace that portion of the command line with a path
to a virtual file representing the standard input of that subshell.
This is a bash-specific feature.
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Now we can see the output again!
Well,
if we're /writing/ to the clipboard,
why don't we just /read/ from it too?
Instead of saving our mail to a file,
we can just copy the relevant portion and have that piped directly to
=grep=!
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If you have a list of URLs and you just copy that portion,
then you can just get rid of =grep= entirely.
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What if you wrote to =results.txt= and later decided that you want to copy
the results to the clipboard?
We can do that too by reading =results.txt= in place of standard input to
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=xclip=,
as shown here.
Phew!
*** REHEARSED Go Grab a Coffee :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEAMER: \fullslidetext
Go Grab a Coffee
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
2019-03-15 23:49:15 -04:00
:DURATION: 00:00:15
:END:
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Remember when I said I could go grab a coffee and play with the kids while
the script did its thing?
Well now's that time.
But grabbing a coffee means that this system is a bottleneck.
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The Internet is fast nowadays;
ideally, we wouldn't have to wait long.
Can we do better?
*** REHEARSED Async Processes :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ sleep 1 && echo done & echo start
start
done
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \begin{uncoverenv}<2>\subskip
/(Don't do this for large numbers of URLs!)/
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ while read URL; do
fetch-url "$URL" | grep -q 'free software' \
|| echo "$URL" &
done | tee results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{uncoverenv}
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:45
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
:END:
What if we could query multiple URLs in parallel?
Shells have built-in support for backgrounding tasks so that they can run
while you do other things;
all you have to do is place a single ampersand at the end of a command.
So in this example,
we sleep for one second and then echo ``done''.
But that sleep and subsequent echo is put into the background,
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and the shell proceeds to execute =echo start= while =sleep= is running in
the background.
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One second later,
it outputs ``done''.
So here's the loop we were just writing.
If we add an ampersand at the end of that pipeline,
it'll run in the background and immediately proceed to the next URL,
executing the loop again.
But there's a problem with this approach.
Sure,
it's fine if we only have a few URLs.
But what if we have 1000?
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That isn't efficient,
and it's a bit rude to server administrators.
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*** REHEARSED Executable Shell Script and Concurrency :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
**** =url-grep= :B_block:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: block
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
#!/bin/bash
search=$1
url=$2
wget -qO- "$url" \
| grep -q "$search" || echo "$url"
#+END_SRC
**** Execute :B_ignoreheading:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: ignoreheading
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ chmod +x url-grep
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<1>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ while read URL; do
./url-grep 'free software' "$URL" >> results.txt
done
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<2>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ xargs -n1 ./url-grep 'free software' > results.txt
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<3>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ xargs -n1 -P5 ./url-grep 'free software' > results.txt
# ^ 5 concurrent processes
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:30
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
:END:
Before we continue,
we're going to have to write our pipeline in a way that other programs can
run it.
Up to this point,
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the program has just been embedded within an interactive shell session.
One of the nice things about shell is that you can take what you entered
onto the command line and paste it directly into a file and,
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with some minor exceptions,
it'll work all the same.
Let's take our pipeline and name it =url-grep=.
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Aliases only work in interactive sessions by default,
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so we're going to just type =wget= directly here.
Alternatively,
you can define a function.
We use the positional parameters =1= and =2= here to represent the
respective arguments to the =url-grep= command,
and assign them to new variables for clarity.
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2019-03-15 23:49:15 -04:00
The comment at the top of the file is called a ``shebang''.
This is used by the kernel so that it knows what interpreter to use to run
our program.
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To make it executable,
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we use =chmod= to set the executable bits on the file.
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We can then invoke it as if it were an executable.
You actually don't /have/ to do this;
you can call =bash url-grep= instead of making it executable,
and then you don't need the shebang either.
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Now we replace the =while= loop with =xargs=.
It takes values from standard in and appends them as arguments to the
provided command line.
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We specify =-n1= to say that only one argument should be read from stdin
for any invocation of the command;
that makes it run a new command for every line of input.
Otherwise it'd just append N URLs as N arguments.
And now we can simply use =-P= to tell it how many processes to use at once.
Here we specify =5=,
meaning =xargs= will run five processes at a time.
You can change that to whatever number makes sense for you.
*** REHEARSED Execution Time :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ wc -l url-list
1000
$ time xargs -n1 -P10 ./url-grep 'free software' < url-list
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
real 0m17.548s
user 0m8.283s
sys 0m4.877s
#+END_SRC
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:50
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
:END:
So how long does it take to run?
2019-03-15 00:46:44 -04:00
2019-03-15 23:49:15 -04:00
I took a few URLs and just repeated them in a file so that I had 1000 of
them.
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Running the =xargs= command,
it finishes in under 18 seconds on my system at home.
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Obviously YMMV,
and certain sites may be slower to respond than others.
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If you were to write this from scratch knowing what you know now,
then in just a few minutes,
the task will have been automated away /and/ completed,
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all by gluing together existing programs.
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You don't need to be a programmer to know how to do this;
you just need to be familiar with the tools and know what's possible,
which comes with a little bit of practice.
It can certainly be daunting at first.
But I hope that by walking you through these examples and showing you how to
construct them step-by-step,
it helps to demystify them and show that there is no wizardry involved.
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2019-03-15 23:49:15 -04:00
We've come a long way from using the web browser and a mouse.
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Now that we've finally completed our research task,
let's look at a few more examples.
** REHEARSED More Examples [8/8]
*** More Example Topics [7/7] :noexport:
- [X] Screenshots with =import=.
- Including copying to clipboard.
- [X] Using =import= and =tesseract= for screenshot OCR.
- See if we can demo on the LP laptop.
- It works very well with the [[https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/libreplanet/2019/assets/keynote_banner.png][LP2019 keynote speakers image]].
- [X] Checking the weather
- [X] Resizing images
- [X] Password management [3/3]
- [X] =pwgen=.
- [X] Diceware/EFF word list with POSIX tools.
- [X] GPG-encrypted password list over SSH with smart card.
- [X] Full circle: automating with =xdotool=.
- Use =tesserac= to detect matches from =Ctrl+F=.
- [X] Finding documentation with =info= and =man=.
*** REHEARSED Resize Images :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC
$ for img in *.png; do
convert "$img" -resize 50% "sm-$img"
done
# nested directories
$ find . -name '*.png' -exec convert {} -resize 50% sm-{} \;
#+END_SRC
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**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:30
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:END:
This example will be useful to people who have a lot of images that the want
to perform an operation on.
ImageMagick has a =convert= tool which can do a huge variety of image
manipulations that you would expect to have to use, say, GIMP for.
In this case,
we're just using one of the simples ones to reduce the image size by 50%.
The first example uses /globbing/ to find all PNG images in the current
directory.
The second example uses the =find= command and searches all child
directories as well.
Both examples produce a new set of images prefixed with =sm-=.
*** REHEARSED Password Generation :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC
# generate a random 32-character password
$ tr -cd '[:graph:]' < /dev/urandom | head -c32
`TB~cmJQ1%S8&tJ,%FoD54}"Fm4}\Iwi
# generate passphrase from EFF's large dice wordlist
# (https://www.eff.org/dice)
$ cut -f2 eff_large_wordlist.txt \
| sort -R --random-source=/dev/urandom \
| head -n6 \
| tr '\n' ' '
oppressor roman jigsaw unhappy thinning grievance
#+END_SRC
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**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:45
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
:END:
How about password generation?
=/dev/urandom= is a stream of random binary data.
We can use =tr= to delete everything that is not a printable character by
taking the complement of =graph=.
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That type of password is useful if you have a password manager,
but it's not useful if you need to memorize it.
When memorization is needed,
a /passphrase/ may be a better option.
A common way to generate those is to use a large list of memorable words and
choose them /at random/.
Diceware is one such system,
and the EFF has its own word list.
But we don't need physical dice when we can just use =sort= to randomly
permute the word list.
The EFF recommends taking at least six words,
which is what I did here.
This one is particularly memorable and morbid-sounding.
I'm a little upset that I put it in the slide instead of using it!
*** REHEARSED Password Manager :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ gpg --decrypt password-db.gpg | head -n3
https://foo.com
user mikegerwitz
pass !({:pT6DcJG.cr&OAco_EC63r_*xg|uD
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \begin{uncoverenv}<2>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ gpg --decrypt password-db.gpg \
| grep -A2 ^https://foo.com \
| tail -n2 \
| while read key value; do
echo "paste $key..."
printf %s "$value" \
| xclip -o -selection clipboard -l 1 -quiet
done
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{uncoverenv}
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**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:40
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
:END:
Speaking of password managers.
We can create a pretty decent rather quickly.
Let's say we have a password list encrypted using GnuPG,
which can be decrypted like so.
Each account has a URL,
username,
and password.
We pipe the output to =grep= to find the one we're looking for.
The caret anchors the match to the beginning of the line.
We then use =tail= to keep only the last two lines,
discarding the URL.
Here we see =read= with more than one variable.
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For each line,
we read the first word into =key= and the rest of the line into =value=.
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This is where it gets a bit more interesting.
We don't want to actually output our password anywhere where others could
see it or where it may be vulnerable to a side channel like Van Eck
phreaking.
Instead,
we're going to copy the value to the clipboard.
Here we use =printf= instead of =echo= because of some technical details I
don't have time to get into here,
but it has to do with =echo= option parsing.
/(If you're reading this: imagine what happens if the password is ``-n
foo'', for example.)/
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But the clipboard has its own risks too.
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What if there's a malicious program monitoring the clipboard for passwords?
I used =-l 1= with =xclip=.
=-l= stands for ``loop'',
which is the number of times to serve paste requests.
Normally =xclip= goes into the background and acts as a server.
=-quiet= keeps =xclip= in the foreground.
So if we see that the script moves on to request pasting the next value
before we've actually pasted it,
then we'll be made aware that something is wrong and perhaps we should
change our account information.
Another nice consequence is that the first value you paste will be the
username,
and the second value will be the password.
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And then the script will exit.
Very convenient!
Since the decrypted data exist only as part of the pipeline,
the decrypted passwords are only kept plaintext in memory for the duration
of the script.
*** REHEARSED Remote Password Manager With 2FA :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
- Add =extra-socket= to =.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf=
- Add =RemoteForward= in =.ssh/config= for host
- Save script on previous slide as =get-passwd=
#+BEAMER: \subskip
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ ssh -Y mikegerwitz-pc get-passwd https://foo.com
#+END_SRC
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:30
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
:END:
But what if you need passwords on multiple devices?
Well,
then you have to worry about how to keep them in sync.
It also means that,
if you are travelling and asked to decrypt files on your laptop,
you're put in a tough spot.
Instead,
let's make that command line from the previous slide a script called
=get-passwd=,
and have it take the URL as an argument.
We can then access it remotely over SSH.
But to have clipboard access,
we need to forward our X11 session,
which is what =-Y= does.
But that's still not good enough.
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What if my master password is compromised---the
password for my database?
I'd rather have two-factor authentication.
I asymmetrically encrypt my password database using a private key that's
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
stored on my Nitrokey,
which is a smart card---keys
cannot be extracted from it,
unless there's a vulnerabilty of course.
To unlock the card,
I must enter a PIN.
So that's both something I know and something I have.
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If you enter the PIN incorrectly three times,
the PIN needs to be reset with an administrative password.
If you get that wrong three times,
the device bricks itself.
And this all works over SSH too.
Asymmetic encryption is also nice for shared passwords.
I share a small password database with my wife,
for example.
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
Encrypting long-term secrets with asymmetric keys isn't a great idea,
so there's a tradeoff.
I choose to accept it,
because passwords aren't long-term secrets---I
can easily change them.
But you could easily do both---
first require decryption with your smart card and then enter a passphrase
for a symmetric key.
*** REHEARSED Taking Screenshots :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
# draw region on screen, output to ss.png
$ import ss.png
# screenshot of entire screen after 5 seconds
$ import -pause 5 -window root ss.png
# screenshot to clipboard
import png:- | xclip -i -selection clipboard -t image/png
#+END_SRC
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:00:35
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
:END:
Okay,
back to something less serious.
ImageMagick also comes with a vaguely-named utility called =import=,
which can capture images from an X server.
Screenshots.
If you run it with just a filename,
then it'll change your cursor to a cross.
You can drag to define a rectangular region to copy,
or you can just click on a window to take a screenshot of the whole thing.
The bottom example avoids outputting to a file entirely and instead feeds
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
the raw image data to standard out.
We then pipe that to =xclip= to copy it to the clipboard.
Notice the new =image/png= type there.
Now you can paste the image into other programs,
like image editors or websites.
*** REHEARSED Screenshot OCR :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ import png:- | tesseract -psm 3 - - | cowsay
__________________________________
/ Keynote Speakers \
| |
| i |
| |
| Bdale Garbee Micky Metts Richard |
\ Stallman Tarek Loubani /
----------------------------------
\ ^__^
\ (oo)\_______
(__)\ )\/\
||----w |
|| ||
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
#+BEAMER: \begin{onlyenv}<+>
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
# OCR at URL
$ wget -qO- https://.../keynote_banner.png \
| tesseract -psm 3 - -
# perform OCR on selected region and speak it
$ import png:- | tesseract -psm 3 - - | espeak
# perform OCR on clipboard image and show in dialog
$ xclip -o -selection clipboard -t image/png \
| tesseract -psm 3 - - \
| xargs -0 zenity --info --text
#+END_SRC
#+BEAMER: \end{onlyenv}
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:00
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
:END:
Since =import= lets us select a region of the screen,
what if we used that to create a script that runs OCR on whatever we
select?
And just for fun,
what if the translation was presented to us by a cow?
=tesseract= is a free (as in freedom) optical character recognition
program.
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
In this example,
I selected the keynote speaker image on the LP2019 website.
It worked quite well.
But a cow isn't practical.
Instead,
you can imagine maybe binding this to a key combination in your window
manager.
In that case,
maybe it'd be more convenient if it was spoken to you,
like the second example.
Or maybe copied to your clipboard.
In the third example,
we take an image off of the clipboard,
run OCR,
and then display the resulting text in a GUI dialog with =zenity=.
I really like these examples,
because to an average user,
all of this seems somewhat novel.
And yet,
it's one of the simplest examples we've done!
YMMV though with tesseract,
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depending on your settings and training data.
*** REHEARSED Full Circle :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:END:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
$ xdotool search --name ' GNU IceCat$' windowactivate --sync \
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windowsize 1024 600 \
key ctrl+t \
&& while read url; do
xdotool getactivewindow \
key ctrl+l type "$url" \
&& xdotool getactivewindow \
key Return sleep 5 \
key ctrl+f sleep 0.5 \
type 'free software' \
&& import -window "$( xdotool getactivewindow )" \
-crop 125x20+570+570 png:- \
| tesseract -psm 3 - - \
| grep -q ^Phrase && echo "$url" \
done < url-list | tee results.txt
#+END_SRC
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:02:25
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
:END:
Okay,
for this final example,
I'm going to do something a bit more complex.
Please take a few seconds to look at this.
<pause>
=xdotool= is a swiss army knife of X11 operations.
It can find windows,
give them focus,
send keystrokes,
move the mouse,
and do many other things.
The first line here finds the first window ending in ``GNU IceCat'' and
gives it focus.
=--sync= blocks until that completes so we don't proceed too hastily.
We then proceed to resize it to 1024x600,
and then open a new tab by sending =Ctrl+T=.
That's right.
We've come full circle back to the web browser.
We then proceed to read each URL form a file =url-list=,
which you can see after =done=.
For each URL,
we send =Ctrl+L= to give focus to the location bar and then type in the
URL.
We can't chain any commands in =xdotool= after =type=,
which is why we have another invocation to hit =Return=.
We then sleep for five seconds to give time to navigate.
I use Tor,
so latency varies.
We then send =Ctrl+F=,
wait very briefly to give IceCat time to trigger the find,
and then send our string to search for.
If you remember,
I mentioned that part of the problem with the GUI approach is that it
requires visual inspection.
Fortunately for us,
we have =tesseract=!
So we take a screenshot of the IceCat window at the offset where the match
results are on my system.
We pipe that image to =tesseract= and,
if it contains the word ``Phrase'',
as in ``Phrase not found'',
we echo the URL as a non-match.
All of this is =tee='d to =results.txt= like before.
This is /not/ what I had in mind when I talked about melding mind and
machine.
But this shows that,
even with GUIs,
we can produce some level of automation using existing tools and a little
bit of creativity.
Of course,
this may not work on your system if your font size is different or because
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of various other factors;
to generalize this,
we'd have to get more creative to find the result text.
It's also worth mentioning that =xdotool= can come in handy for the password
manager too---instead
of copying to the clipboard,
we can type it directly into a window.
And by specifying which window to send it to,
we can ensure that we don't accidentally type in the wrong window,
like a chat,
if the user changes focus.
That also thwarts systems that implement the terrible anti-pattern of try to
prevent you from pasting passwords.
*** REHEARSED Getting Help :B_frame:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: frame
:END:
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- All GNU packages have Info manuals and =--help=
- Most programs (including GNU) have manpages
#+BEAMER: \subskip
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
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$ grep --help # usage information for grep
$ man grep # manpage for grep
$ info grep # full manual for grep
# bash help
$ help
$ man bash
#+END_SRC
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
**** Notes :B_noteNH:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: noteNH
:DURATION: 00:01:30
2019-03-17 12:14:22 -04:00
:END:
I have presented a lot of stuff here,
and I only got to a fraction of what I would have liked to talk about.
Some of you watching this aren't familiar with a lot of these topics,
or possibly /any/ of them,
so getting started may seem like a daunting task.
Where do you start?
As I showed before,
the process of writing a command line is an iterative one.
Learning is the same way.
I don't remember all of the options for these programs.
=xdotool= I had used only lightly before this talk,
for example;
I had to research how to write that command line.
But I didn't use the Internet to do it;
I did it from the comfort of my terminal using only what was already
installed on my system.
You can usually get usage information for programs by typing =--help= after
the command.
This will work for all GNU programs,
but not all command line programs implement it.
All GNU programs also offer Info manuals,
which read like books;
those can be found with the =info= command,
and can also be read in a much better format using Emacs.
You can also usually find them online in HTML format.
Most command line programs for Unix-like operating systems also include
manpages,
accessible with the =man= command.
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If you want to know how to use =man=,
you can view its own manpage using =man man=.
You can also get some help using Bash itself by simply typing =help= to list
its builtins,
and it has a very comprehensive manpage.
This is obviously a bit different than how people interact with GUIs,
which are designed to be discoverable without the need for users to read
documentation.
** Thank You :B_fullframe:
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_env: fullframe
:DURATION: 00:00:01
:END:
#+BEGIN_COMMENT
Thank you.
#+END_COMMENT
#+BEGIN_CENTER
Mike Gerwitz
[[mailto:mtg@gnu.org][=mtg@gnu.org=]]
\bigskip
Slides and Source Code Available Online
<[[https://mikegerwitz.com/talks/cs4m]].pdf>
\bigskip
\vfill
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0
International License
#+END_CENTER
* Exporting :noexport:
For a non-interactive build, including all dependencies, simply run =make=.
Once all dependencies are built, you should be able to simply export this
buffer as a Beamer presentation (=C-c C-e l P=) to get an updated PDF (or
you can just run =make= again).
* Copyright and Licenses :noexport:
This file Copyright (C) 2019 Mike Gerwitz.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0
International License. See [[file:COPYING.CCBYSA]] for the full license text.
Additionally, all code fragments are dual-licensed as such:
All code fragments are free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program (see [[file::COPYING]]). If not, see
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
* Local Variables :noexport:
# Local Variables:
# org-todo-keyword-faces: (("DRAFT" . org-upcoming-deadline) \
# ("DEVOID" . (:inherit org-warning \
# :inverse-video t)) \
# ("LACKING" . org-warning) \
# ("REVIEWED" . "yellow") \
# ("AUGMENT" . (:foreground "yellow" :bold t :underline t)) \
# ("READY" . (:inherit org-scheduled :bold t :underline t)))
# eval: (add-to-list 'org-structure-template-alist
# '("C" "#+BEGIN_COMMENT\n?\n#+END_COMMENT"))
# End: