[digi_owl]

I seem to recall a old article that compared the usage of unix shell with that of ones daily life.

Could have been written by someone that trained older people on how to use computers.

This by showing how the shell task controls (ctrl-z, bg, fg) mapped to real life tasks.

Say you have a long running task, ctrl-z and bg makes it continue in the background. That i believe he likened to putting on a kettle in the morning. when either is done there will be someone sort of notification, and until then you don't really have to care about it.

Similarly you find something in the mail that you may want to deal with later. With physical mail you put it somewhere that you can see as you move around the home. With the shell you get the jobs command, and if you try to log out without ending them you get a warning.

This all going by memory.