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The Terminal

The terminal allows you to executes commands and print outs their results as text. You can open it with the shortcut ⌘ + t.

You can do a lot with this simple text interface and learning to use it is critical as often it's easier to manipulate from programs and a lot of specific tools don't have Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) and a simple Command Line Interface (CLI) is better than a bad GUI.

Your commands are executed from a directory, know as the Working Directory.

You can list what's in your working directory with ls (list)

ls

You can change the working directory with cd (Change Directory)

cd somedir # change the working directory to somedir

You can display the working directory with pwd (Print Working Directory)

pwd # print the working directory

You can get a short description and few simple examples from most commands with tldr (To Long Didn't Read)

tldr cd # print the tldr page of the command cd

If you need full details, read the manual using man (Manual)

man cd # print the man page of the command cd

(as you can see, a lot more detailed, so that's why tldr is often enough)

You can make a new directory with mkdir (Make Directory)

mkdir somenewdir # create a directory named somenewdir

Other commonly used commands chmod, chown, ps, kill, and more !

There are a few specials caracters for common directories :

• . is the current directory
• .. is the parent directory
• / is the root directory
• ~ is your user home directory usualy (/home/username/)

Git (Version Control System)

git is a version control system, it's use to collaborate and share code files.

It allows you to handle multiple version of the same project, switch between them, merge them and much more.

It also serve as a backup and a way to go back to previous versions.

⚠️ note that github is not git, it's a web interface and webhost for git, we use it because it's free for opensource, thanks github 👍

Those are the git commands I use the most :

tldr git clone
tldr git add
tldr git commit
tldr git push
tldr git stash

If you want to go deeper into it checkout this guide learngitbranching.js

JavaScript (Programming Language)

JavaScript often called (js) it is one of the core technologies of the web. At first it was mainly used to make webpages interactive and provide online programs.

It gain popularity as the web kept growing.

Major companies (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla...) invested a lot on making JavaScript fast, as such, it's now additionnaly used for many platforms including mobiles (Facebook app), servers (PayPal), desktops (Code by Microsoft) and even TV's (Netflix).

It's the first language that we will approach since it's one of the most popular, fastest growing and usable in most scenario.

For further referencews read the documentation this will be your new bible

Node (Runtime System)

node is used to run your JavaScript files.

Node is what popularised the use of JavaScript outside of the web by giving it an api that you can use to interact with your computer, write files, create http servers and much, much more.

Find out in details by reading the documentation this will be your other bible

tldr node

NPM (Package Manager)

npm is node package manager

When we program, we like to share and reuse bits of code between project instead of recoding everything all the time.
npm allow us to do just that by creating packages of code that we can then install and use in our other JavaScript files

tldr npm

Code (Source Code Editor)

code is your defaults source code editor

You can open files from terminal with the command code

tldr code

Writing code will be your main occupation, be confortable with your editor.

Learn the shortcuts.

It's a powerfull tool with a lot of features, explore them and show your peers your amazing discoveries.