Command Line Interface
Explanation of the command line interface and how to use it
The Command Line interface (also known as CLI, terminal, or shell) is a way to navigate through your computer's content (media, folders, applications, etc.) without a visual user interface. It allows you to type text commands to perform specific tasks. Since you can directly control the computer by typing, many tasks can be performed more quickly, and some tasks can be automated with special commands that loop through and perform the same action on many files.
As a beginning developer, it's important to get familiar with it, as it will teach you how computers work as tools that you give instructions to. This differs from programming for web development, but instead of writing instructions to the computer directly, you write instructions for browsers to execute!
Note for Windows users: Please install Git for Windows. It comes with an application called Git BASH, which simulates frequently used CLI commands in a Unix fashion. This aligns with our work in this course, as we can all use the same commands. But there is an even bigger reason: Being comfortable in the Unix Bash shell is very important for a web developer, as web servers usually run Linux. Which means you will need to be able to use it.
Follow along with the following video (the video is for the MacOS terminal, so if you are on Windows, you can use your Git Bash and run the same commands):
You'll notice that once you type in a command, the computer doesn't always give back feedback. This is completely normal. Most application development goes like that, and getting used to it is good.
Practice
Now, we suggest going through the most used commands using the following interactive web application: Virtual Terminal
Extra reading
If you can't get enough, here are some extra links that mentors/students have found useful concerning this topic:
Introduction to Bash - Video
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