Include/duplicate commandline prompt explanation in installation section #1876
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into an include. This will allow us to re-use it earlier, in the installation instructions (where attendees are often confused about how the prompt works)
Prevent people from being confused by the the prompt, and eg copy-pasting $s into the terminal.
hjwp
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das-g
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Sep 20, 2025
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In the current workflow of our tutorial, attendees go through the installation instructions first, before going through the full intro to the command line.
But! The installation instructions require them to use the command line already.
This is why we already duplicate up the "how to open the command line" section, using an include.
But, attendees are still sometimes confused by the command line. Specifically, I've seen them copy-pasting the "$" from the listings into the terminal, and being confused by
$: command not founderrors.This PR proposes that we add a second include to the installation instructions, to duplicate up the explanation of what the prompt is, from the commandline page.
Alternatives considered:
Remove all the dollars from commandline listings in the installation chapter. This would prevent the current failure mode, but it makes this section inconsistent with the rest of the tutorial
Add a very brief explanation saying "don't copy-paste the dollars, we'll explain why later". This could work, but concerned it would leave attendees with a low-level worry about some magical thing that they won't learn about for ages.
Reorganise the whole tutorial and put the intro to the command line before the installation instructions. This felt like a much more radical change.