Letting the computer do the dirty work-that's what this entire book is about. However, the next six chapters cover some of the most important ways to do that. The UNIX shells provide many ways to help you avoid typing the same thing over and over again, or typing something long when you could be typing something short, or ...

What is it they say? "Time spent sailing is not subtracted from your life." I don't know about that, but I do know that time spent learning the intricacies of the shell is seldom wasted.