Alright, so let me tell you about this little thing I put together, my “shell landing golf scorecard.” Sounds a bit odd, right? But there’s a story to it, like with most of my tinkering projects.
Getting the Idea
It all started a few weeks back. I was out on the course, trying to enjoy a round, and the fancy app I was using to keep score just kept bugging me. Ads popping up, too many clicks to enter a score, and honestly, it was draining my phone battery like crazy. I found myself thinking, “There’s got to be a simpler way, a more… old-school geeky way to do this.” And since I spend half my life in a terminal window anyway, the idea just clicked: a scorecard, but in the shell.
Diving In – The First Steps
So, I got home, fired up my computer, and just started messing around. I wasn’t aiming for anything revolutionary, just something functional for myself. The first thing I did was think about the basics. What do you absolutely need for a golf scorecard?
- Player names, of course.
- A way to enter scores for each hole.
- A running total.
- And maybe some info about par for each hole.
I decided to go with good old bash scripting. Why? Because it’s right there, no need to install a bunch of new stuff, and I find it kind of fun for these small utility-type things. It’s like whittling wood, but with code.
Building it Out – The Nitty Gritty
My first attempt at getting player names was just a simple `read` command. Easy peasy. Then came the trickier part: inputting scores for 18 holes. I didn’t want to type 18 separate commands. So, I thought about using a loop. I prompted for the score for Hole 1, then Hole 2, and so on. I also added a way to input the par for each hole at the beginning, or just use a default set of pars if I was feeling lazy.
Storing the data initially was just in shell variables. I had arrays for player scores and par values. Nothing fancy like a database, this was supposed to be lightweight. Calculating the total score was straightforward, just summing up the array elements. I also wanted to see the score relative to par, so I added that calculation in too. Plus-minus, you know the drill.
Now, making it look halfway decent in the terminal, that took a bit of fiddling. I played around with `echo` and `printf` to get things lined up. I thought about adding colors – maybe red for over par, green for under – but decided to keep it super simple for the first version. Just plain text, easy to read.
One challenge I remember was handling multiple players. I had to make sure the loops for score entry and display worked correctly for Player 1, Player 2, and so on. It involved a bit of head-scratching and testing, with lots of `echo “Debug: variable is $foo”` along the way. We’ve all been there, right?
What’s with “Shell Landing”?
You might be wondering about the name, “shell landing golf scorecard.” Well, “shell” is obvious because it runs in the command-line shell. The “landing” part? Honestly, it was just a bit of a whim. It kind of “lands” the scorecard right there in your terminal, no fuss, no ceremony. Plus, let’s be honest, my golf balls do a lot of “landing” in unexpected places, so maybe it’s a little nod to my actual golf game, which is… enthusiastic, let’s say.
The Final Score (Card)
So, after a few evenings of tinkering, I had it. A simple, no-frills golf scorecard that runs in my terminal. Is it perfect? Heck no. It doesn’t have fancy graphics, it doesn’t sync to the cloud, it probably has a bug or two I haven’t found yet. But you know what? It does exactly what I wanted it to do: keep score without the fluff.
I actually used it on my next round. Pulled out my little netbook, typed in the scores after each hole. Felt a bit like a retro hacker on the golf course. My buddies found it amusing, but hey, it worked! And my phone battery was happy.
It was a fun little project. A good reminder that sometimes the simplest tools are the most satisfying to build and use, especially when you make them yourself. It’s not going to replace those big commercial apps, but for a quick, local, and kind of personal way to track a game, it’s my new go-to. Plus, I got to practice some shell scripting, which is always a good time in my book.
