To get the most out of this book

As the authors, we wrote this book to be accessible and teach you, the reader many different approaches to programming with Bash through several recipes. However, to get the most out of them, we encourage you to:

• Have a Linux system setup and configured (ideally Ubuntu) to complete the recipes
• Work through the recipes 
• Keep in mind what the components of each recipe and even the recipes themselves to see how they could be reused or combined in new ways

However,  this book assumes a certain level of knowledge to begin your journey and these skills will not be covered in this book. These skills include the following:

• How to setup and configure a Linux system
• How to install, access, and configure a specific text editor (although several are already included in most Linux distributions)
• Some basics about computing and programming (although we will do our best to provide a crash course)

To gain proficiency in those areas, we recommend that you either give it your best shot if you are an adept problem solver and quick learner, or checkout the following resources first:

• Linux or distribution communities
• Open source forums or groups
• YouTube or similar media