Modern day computer operating systems provide users with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to interact with the computer. However, when coding and doing software development, it is often advantageous to use a Command Line Interface (CLI).
CLIs are a text-based way of interacting with a computer. While it may seem overwhelming at first, we only need to understand a few principals.
Terminal — text input environment that runs a shell, this is the name of the macOS app that you will need to find and run to open up a new shell and begin writing bash commands.
Shell — text input interface software (zsh; Z-shell) that provides a way for users to interact with the computer’s operating system.
Bash — a language for interacting with computers. Bash consists of running a single command (or program) with modifiers. We will need to learn a couple of basic Bash commands to navigate the terminal.
ls # list directory contents
cd # change directory
cd .. # go back a directory
pwd # print working directory
mkdir # make new directory
touch # create a new file