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This is why I like HN, and why it continues to be a much-higher-quality place to visit on the web than many other forums: there were no snarky replies, no "I can't believe you don't know cron" - just multiple friendly, helpful replies explaining exactly what this format is.

What a good community.

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Agreed, though my first reaction was definitely: "I can't believe you don't know cron". I had to step back a little and remember who the audience is. Then I wrote my comment (at the same time as everyone else here did).

Actually my first thought was - that guy was a smart-ass showing off. Of course many people wouldn't know a crontab line - Windows (and I guess Mac - never had one) don't have such magical tools.

Mac has cron. It's pretty standard on *NIX systems.

Yeah but is superseded by launchd. So although it has cron, it's not running by default for many years.

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