Path Before Shortcut

Today I giddily discovered AWS CLI aliases — a way to create shortcuts in the AWS CLI for frequent commands or longer scripts. That excitement led to a measured meandering.

Shortcuts, whether for keyboard or a CLI, seem to require a pain-point for them to be useful. I use the AWS CLI pretty haphazardly these days. One-off commands reign supreme. But who doesn't use a CLI like that sometimes (if not all the time)? I don't think I've really understood what the bread & butter AWS CLI commands will be for my current role. T

That's the thing I take for granted with shortcuts of the keyboard variety. I know what my frequent commands are from a text editing or web browsing perspective since I engage in those activities a lot. That frequency better brings out the pain points that are addressed with keyboard shortcuts.

Why try to find shortcuts for a path you don't know much about? Well, sometimes the shortcut can be the default path for someone. They didn't know there was a trail, rather they assumed the shortcut was the trail. Some things, however, are better if taken from the path first. Familiarizing yourself with the path then leads to a better sense of where efficient shortcuts should be.

Perhaps.