this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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I don't, because stuff like that is a little too touchy to wrap in a cute shell alias. If I'm going to update a box, I'm going to update a box. If I'm going to reboot a machine, I want to be reminded that I'm going to reboot a machine (which in turn is a reminder that there are other people using stuff there and not to fuck their days up without at least a little warning).
It's just bunch of commands run with a single call, an automation. As long as I know exactly what each command is doing and if I wrote the alias myself, then I think its not a problem. What problem do you see with an update-alias such as I did there? The update-command does exactly that, it updates the box with all relevant package managers.
However if other people are also using the box, then its obviously a different situation. I wouldn't want to be reckless in the operation either; respect other users, even if you can do whatever you want.
It's not that. It's not getting complacent by eliding the semantics of what you're doing. It's being consciously aware that you're doing something that could possibly fuck stuff up.
In fact typing these commands by hand all the time won't save you from a fuck stuff up anyway. The update-alias is the exact same command I would have typed. In fact, as an alias its less likely to make a typo and fuck stuff up. I'm doing this since 2008, when I started with Linux, and named it always "update".
Using the update command I'm always aware it changes the system. Not at least because I also often expand the alias to its full command with a shortcut (update will be replaced in the terminal with the actual commands), I also see what the output of the commands. And without my password it wouldn't do any system changes anyway.
So typing these commands everything out won't be safer, as you suggest.