I've been using terminal for +15 years, and I just learned what this is. Because you highlighted it being crazy that someone didn't know what it was, I looked it up.

Neat! Thanks for teaching me something today. This will be helpful, especially after I spent all morning messing with crontabs and logs and permissions and PATH env's.

Edit: Having read more about this now, I'm realizing that I do use a couple of these out of habit. I just didn't know they were called "readline commands". I thought they were just "how to use the terminal". But there's dozens and dozens of other commands I never knew were possible. Brilliant. Happy Monday.

Terminal feature discovery is hard. If you don't regularly use the commands it's easy to forget they exist.

Here is the exact quote in question:

    > This really resonated with me: even though entering some text and editing it is a very “basic” task, it took me maybe 15 years of using the terminal every single day to get used to using Ctrl+A to go to the beginning of the line (or Ctrl+E for the end).

I think your take is a bit harsh. She is quite a popular writer, and day after day, lays out her ego out for a beating by the InterWebs each time that she posts. She is never afraid to be humble. That is part of the genius of her posts. She says what so many are afraid to say publicly -- "oh this 'simple' thing is very complex" or vice versa.

I've also been using Linux and the terminal ~15 years, and these things i keep forgetting and relearning every now and then. About Ctrl+A in particular, it never sticks in my memory, since i find typing the Home key to be more intuitive. Maybe the author has this same "problem".

It's funny how other programs don't seem to have this issue, and their users are able to learn new things without having to resort to an external manual. Makes one wonder about the design of everyday things!

Yeah, I have my doubts about the claim. I forgot what I read way back when as an intro book, but I suspect it was more like a month in my case, if that. But I remember having been surprised at various points that there was an undo (C-_), and a clipboard (C-y to paste) including a history (M-y). So yeah, I guess it depends on the scope.

Maybe it's a hyperbole? Dunno, doesn't really read that way.