Any recommendations for learning Terminal / Mac Command Line?

[Brian K. Mitchell]

Newbie Mec User here, again!

Question: What are your recommendations for learning to use the Mac Command Line or Terminal?

right now I am reading Joe Kissell's 'Take Control of the Mac Command Line with Terminal'

[josephbradford]

Don't. LOL

 

I'm teaching a Website coding class at the moment at the local College. I've coded a couple of sites before and hate coding. Not only is Terminal pure coding, but it has the potential to royally screw up your Mac if you get something important wrong. I've made some changes to various programs before using terminal. It's just not worth the headache. 

 

One of my professors told me, "Since you love learning foreign languages, think of coding as a new language." It didn't work. Unless you're board or you need terminal for something specific, I don't think it's worth it. But she was right. It's like learning Thai, a headache.

[Brian K. Mitchell]

32 minutes ago, josephbradford said:

...I don't think it's worth it. But she was right. It's like learning Thai, a headache.

Thank you so much for taking the time to provide some advice and the warning.

 

However, when it comes to tackling an FL be that an L2 or L3 or more I highly recommend language acquisition (and immersion through comprehensible input) above and over language learning.

[josephbradford]

I'm working on my 4th language now. I began learning my 3rd language in my 2nd while in South America. That was way cool. Still, coding is just frustrating. In Italian, if you get a conjugation mixed up, or use a preposition wrong, they'll be able to get the gist and work with you. 

 

You get one letter wrong when coding and the whole thing can shut down. And good luck finding it to fix it! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggg

[Brian K. Mitchell]

4 minutes ago, josephbradford said:

I'm working on my 4th language now. 

😀 Awesome! That is great to hear! 

 

6 minutes ago, josephbradford said:

I began learning my 3rd language in my 2nd while in South America. That was way cool.

This is cool and encouraging! And, it proves that "Monolingualism can be cured!" that serious illness that has infected many anglophones and others around the world over the years.

 

11 minutes ago, josephbradford said:

You get one letter wrong when coding and the whole thing can shut down. And good luck finding it to fix it! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggg

Sounds like you must have had some experience with this or knew people who did.

[dandennison]

Just have good time machine backups. 
 

Then experiment all you want.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Start with reading magazine articles in Macworld or MacLife or read some Mac news websites.

 

They'll show you some fun tricks you can do with the command line.

 

macOS is similar to Linux (it's based on BSD UNIX), so some articles on Linux or BSD UNIX Command Line may carry over to macOS (not all will, but some).

 

"sudo" is the main thing you'll need to be careful with when using the command line. You'll want Time Machine backups before playing with "sudo".

[josephbradford]

JOKE

What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?

Trilingual 

 

What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?

Bilingual

 

What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?

...wait for it...

 

 

 

American