2019-11-01
Imagine a world where instead of being able to use words to communicate with other people, all you could do was move your hand back and forth. Your ability to communicate would be significantly limited.
Now I realize that some people are indeed unable to communicate with spoken words, and so have to use sign language. They have my greatest respect. But for the purposes of this analogy, sign language is still a language, and so it takes nothing away from my point. Which is that while it is helpful when you don't know the language to be able to interact simply by pointing and gesturing -- which is what graphical user interfaces permit -- nevertheless, if you actually learn the language then you communicate with much greater clarity, power, and efficiency.
And the language of computers is code. So take your hand off your
mouse and put it on the keyboard-- Actually no, first you might need to
use your mouse to open your terminal
emulator. Then you're
ready to go! You see that thick white cursor that doesn't even bother
blinking? That's the white rabbit that will set you free from captivity
to the Matrix and lead you down into Wonderland...
Some simple commands to get started:
ls lists the contents of your current location;pwd prints the name of that working directory;cd changes directory;cp copies a file;man opens the manual for whatever command you need to know more about;To begin with, it might feel awkward and uncomfortable -- as is often the case when learning a new language. But it's worth it.