Learn to be a macOS Command Line Ninja
What you'll learn
- Stop being afraid of the command line!
- How mastering the command line will benefit you
- Understand Terminal's interface
- Navigate the macOS file system from the command line
- Create, copy, move & delete files and directories
- Understand relative & absolute paths
- View and edit files in Terminal using cat & nano
- Basic pattern matching with wildcards
- Advanced pattern matching using "grep"
- Advanced workflow: streams, pipes & filtering
Requirements
- Be comfortable with the Apple Mac desktop, including using Finder.
- Have access to any Apple Mac computer, or perhaps a Linux machine.
Description
Does the Command Line Intimidate You?
Are you one of the millions of Mac users who are afraid of using the Terminal?
Are you a professional or student and you know you need to brush up your command line skills?
Do you just lack the background knowledge to get started?
Did you know that 95% of macOS command line skills also work on Linux?
It's true. So learning the macOS command line can accelerate your studies or career, giving you radically new skills you never imagined.
You don’t need any previous experience. If you’re comfortable using macOS desktop and basic tools such as Finder, or even if you’re new to Mac but familiar with other systems such as Linux or Windows, then you’re ready to take this course.
You'll start with the basics, and by the end you'll be able to perform some advanced tasks that would impress most professionals.
What You’ll Learn, in Detail
You’ll start with the very basics of what the Terminal actually is, how it relates to the rest of macOS, and the huge benefits of learning the command line.
From there you’ll see how to launch Terminal, how to understand the user interface, and how to run your first commands such as ls.
Then you’ll be introduced to the file system and you’ll learn how to navigate around using the command line using cd.
You'll be introduced to paths and learn the difference between relative and absolute paths
You’ll learn to work with files, creating, copying, moving and deleting files and directories.
You’ll learn how to view and edit files directly in Terminal using cat and nano. You'll also learn a little about vi and vim, and why they're not the best for a beginner.
You’ll learn the basics of pattern matching so you can work with wildcards and search tools such as grep, which will make your workflow much more efficient.
Finally you’ll learn about I/O streams and redirection, and very powerful tools such as pipes and command line filters so you can sort and reorganise files and other data.
Who this course is for:
- Computing, maths or or science students, and graduate or junior developers.
- Postgraduate students in computing, data science, or other sciences who want to do data processing, machine learning or use any software that requires command line knowledge.
- Any power user who needs to be able to use command line tools such as: git, ffmpeg, ssh, curl, ngrok, etc.
Instructor
- 4.9 Instructor Rating
- 79 Reviews
- 3,222 Students
- 1 Course
I have been programming since teaching myself assembly language at school in the 1980s. I landed my first job at the biggest videogames company in the UK by walking in off the street with a demo.
After that I gained a degree in Computing Science and went on to work as a software consultant, and I've worked on projects ranging from the Channel Tunnel drilling system to Bloomberg's hugely successful first iPad app.
I have worked with most programming languages at some point in my life, and have used most systems. I first met Unix in 1990 and have used macOS in its various forms since 2008.
I currently spend most of my time developing iOS apps for clients, building embedded devices and blogging about IoT and Raspberry Pi projects.