Chapter 17. Taking Care of Business

As a freelancer, I run a business, but I have little interest in the business side of it. I'm more interested in composing cryptic crossword puzzles, teaching chess, and writing computer programs (and books and articles about them) than in bookkeeping and other administrative tasks. My computer should help me with these tasks, but these tasks shouldn't take over the computer—it's too busy with my real work.

Record keeping is a tedious chore, and the computer should help me do my bookkeeping with less effort than without it. Using shell scripts at the command line, I can enter an invoice and move on to something else in less time than it would take to open a spreadsheet or an accounting program.

The two scripts ...

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