bash tips for efficiency

set show-all-if-ambiguous on

If you have this in your /etc/inputrc or ~/.inputrc, you will no longer have to hit the Tab key twice to produce a list of all possible completions. A single Tab will suffice.

set visible-stats on

Adding this to your /etc/inputrc or ~/.inputrc will result in a character being appended to any file-names returned by completion, in much the same way as ls -F works.

"\ep": history-search-backward
"\en": history-search-forward

Set the above in your /etc/inputrc or ~/.inputrc. Then, ESC-p and ESC-n (or M-p and M-n) will give you non-incremental history completion backwards and forwards, respectively.

Testing is not enough

"Any failure during testing should be analysed to understand the root causes:

1. how the error came to be introduced
2. why the development processes failed to detect the error earlier - so that other errors of this class are found too and so that the processes can be improved to avoid such errors in future."

"Errors should no longer be regarded as inevitable"


--- from <<Engineering values in IT>>