Christian Heilmann

Want to learn more about using the command line? Remy helps!

Tuesday, March 14th, 2017 at 2:29 pm

This is an unashamed plug for Remy Sharp’s terminal training course command line for non–techies. Go over there and have a look at what he’s lined up for a very affordable price. In a series of videos he explains all the ins and outs of the terminal and its commands that can make you much more effective in your day-to-day job.

Working the command line ebook

I’ve read the ebook of the same course and have to say that I learned quite a few things but – more importantly – remembered a lot I had forgotten. By using the findings over and over a lot has become muscle memory, but it is tough to explain what I am doing. Remy did a great job making the dark command line magic more understandable and less daunting. Here is what the course covers:

Course material

“Just open the terminal”

  • Just open the terminal (03:22)
  • Why use a terminal? (03:23)
  • Navigating directories (07:71)
  • Navigation shortcuts (01:06)

Install all the things

  • Running applications (05:47)
  • brew install fun (07:46)
  • gem install (06:32)
  • npm install—global (09:44)
  • Which is best? (02:13)

Tools of the Terminal Trade

  • Connecting programs (08:25)
  • echo & cat (01:34)
  • grep “searching” (06:22)
  • head tail less (10:24)
  • sort | uniq (07:58)

How (not) to shoot yourself in the foot

  • Delete all the things (07:42)
  • Super user does…sudo (07:50)
  • Permissions: mode & owner (11:16)
  • Kill kill kill! (12:21)
  • Health checking (12:54)

Making the shell your own

  • Owning your terminal (09:19)
  • Fish ~> (10:18)
  • Themes (01:51)
  • zsh (zed shell) (10:11)
  • zsh plugins: z st… (08:26)
  • Aliases (05:43)
  • Alias++ → functions (08:15)

Furthering your command line

  • Piping workflow (08:14)
  • Setting environment values (03:04)
  • Default environment variable values (01:46)
  • Terminal editors (06:41)
  • wget and cURL (09:53)
  • ngrok for tunnelling (06:38)
  • json command for data massage (07:51)
  • awk for splitting output into columns (04:11)
  • xargs (for when pipes won’t do) (02:15)
  • …fun bonus-bonus video (04:13)

I am not getting anything for this, except for making sure that someone as lovely and dedicated as Remy may reach more people with his materials. So, take a peek.

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