1 00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:01,230 Welcome back. 2 00:00:01,410 --> 00:00:04,500 In this video we're going to start by talking about the command mind. 3 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:11,310 So this portion of our development environment and what we actually do here and what it's used for and 4 00:00:11,310 --> 00:00:16,170 then we're going to introduce some of the early and most important command line commands. 5 00:00:16,530 --> 00:00:20,930 Let's start by talking about what the command line is what the whole point of it is. 6 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:27,300 So far you've seen me type one instruction into the command line one command I typed node app. 7 00:00:27,380 --> 00:00:28,770 Yes it looks like this. 8 00:00:28,770 --> 00:00:34,440 And it won't work here because I don't have an access file but that's how I started my server when I 9 00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:38,270 did the demonstration of the dog demo app. 10 00:00:38,370 --> 00:00:40,640 That's just one of the important commands. 11 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:45,210 But there are quite a few more that we're going to learn about that we'll use through the rest of this 12 00:00:45,210 --> 00:00:46,030 class. 13 00:00:46,170 --> 00:00:50,690 Before we talk about them I want to read the introduction to this book. 14 00:00:50,700 --> 00:00:56,220 This e-book called Getting to know the command line written by David Baum gold and it's a great resource 15 00:00:56,220 --> 00:00:56,610 . 16 00:00:56,610 --> 00:01:04,500 And if you have the time I definitely recommend that you read this entire ebook as well as this basic 17 00:01:04,500 --> 00:01:07,740 command line tutorial that he links to right here. 18 00:01:07,740 --> 00:01:13,800 But what I want to read is this paragraph here the command line is the ultimate seat of power on your 19 00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:19,770 computer using the command line you can perform amazing feats of wizardry and speed taming your computer 20 00:01:19,770 --> 00:01:22,460 and getting it to do precisely what you want. 21 00:01:22,470 --> 00:01:25,590 Unfortunately the price of this power is complexity. 22 00:01:25,590 --> 00:01:28,910 Nobody ever said that ruling your computer would be easy. 23 00:01:28,920 --> 00:01:30,760 The command line is at its heart. 24 00:01:30,900 --> 00:01:36,390 Simply a place where you type commands to the computer the computer is your obedient servant and will 25 00:01:36,390 --> 00:01:39,330 attempt to carry out any commands that it understands. 26 00:01:39,330 --> 00:01:44,340 Unfortunately the computer does not speak English or any other language spoken by humans although it 27 00:01:44,340 --> 00:01:47,420 has recognizable elements in order to give it commands. 28 00:01:47,430 --> 00:01:50,470 We must first start learning the language of the computer. 29 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:53,370 I like to think of the command line as this. 30 00:01:53,460 --> 00:01:58,460 No frills direct interface to the core of our computer. 31 00:01:58,530 --> 00:02:03,930 It used to be that the only interface that existed to work with the computer and interact with it was 32 00:02:03,930 --> 00:02:05,470 through a command line. 33 00:02:05,670 --> 00:02:11,010 In the early computers you would fire it up and it's a black screen with green text and there was no 34 00:02:11,010 --> 00:02:17,760 visual interface and then some of the early Xerox and Mac computers came out which had visual interfaces 35 00:02:17,770 --> 00:02:17,910 . 36 00:02:18,030 --> 00:02:24,330 So that's where we get the mouse and the desktop and icons and things that we click on and basically 37 00:02:24,330 --> 00:02:25,850 everything that we do with our computers. 38 00:02:25,860 --> 00:02:33,510 Now as humans as non-developers we do through a visual interface but it's not just that the command 39 00:02:33,510 --> 00:02:36,380 line is another way of interacting with a computer. 40 00:02:36,390 --> 00:02:41,440 It's not that it's just an uglier simpler way where we just use the keyboard and text. 41 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:47,190 You could argue that it is uglier and simpler but more importantly it lets you do a lot more than you 42 00:02:47,190 --> 00:02:53,160 can do with just your mouse so you can do everything that you would do with your mouse with visual menus 43 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:58,490 like making a new file or saving a file or running a file or opening an application. 44 00:02:58,620 --> 00:03:04,320 You can do all of that through the command line but you can also do a lot more that you can't do without 45 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:05,260 the command line. 46 00:03:05,310 --> 00:03:10,140 That includes things like starting a node server which is one of the important things that we have to 47 00:03:10,140 --> 00:03:15,450 do in this class is start our javascript server and you can't do that by just clicking on things with 48 00:03:15,450 --> 00:03:16,280 your mouse. 49 00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,680 So that's one of the big reasons we're learning the command line. 50 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:23,550 The other reason that developers use it is that it's much faster. 51 00:03:23,550 --> 00:03:29,220 Once you master it and once you know the important commands you can create files and run files and delete 52 00:03:29,220 --> 00:03:32,860 files so much faster than if you're using your mouse. 53 00:03:32,970 --> 00:03:37,710 Of course there is a learning curve and when you start out it feels like things take a lot more effort 54 00:03:37,710 --> 00:03:43,060 to do with the command line and they do until you learn them and you feel comfortable with them. 55 00:03:43,380 --> 00:03:48,660 I strongly recommend that you do the exercises that I'm going to give you but that you also practice 56 00:03:48,900 --> 00:03:52,370 and use your command line in Cloud Nine as much as possible.