I really appreciate the new learning tools to become more adept at programming and the command line. However, I often find myself mindlessly re-typing the commands being thrown at me without really understanding what's going on, or why I'm being asked to do it.

I liked the approach of Ruby Monks where they give you a task and let you guess the syntax. If you got stuck you then look at the solution.

I don't mean to make less of try git, or any other interactive tutorial. We live in a wonderful time where we are able to learn powerful tools without even installing them, so I almost feel bad about making this criticism. But I think current tools could be improved by removing some of the wizardy feeling and allowing users to play around and trying to figure out stuff on their own.