Guide to Profitable Sales
OPERATING SYSTEMS & SHELLS
Which do you have
You probably are on a Mac or Windows, possibly even Linux; these are operating systems (OS).
Kernal & Shell
One thing you probably should know is that each of these OS’s have something called a ‘Kernel’ that is like a set of commands that get the computer to do stuff. You talk to the Kernel with what is know as a ‘Shell’. There are a couple different Shells but they are pretty consistent at their most basic level.
Bash & ZSH Shells
Mac is using ‘zsh’ but in most regards it is just a more capable version of BASH. BASH is generally available across operating systems (if you want to argue that, then you obviously aren’t a novice, so move on). BASH has some files that can be edited to provide ‘scripting’ (or a series of commands to be run). You can script all sorts of things as you get more experienced. But for now, all we want to do is to edit your BASH file to manage what your command prompt looks like. Doing that will make it easier to clearly know where you are.
It probably sounds pretty stupid that you might not know where you are. Believe it or not, as you use your computer to do more, knowing where you are really is a big deal. On your own computer you want to be clear what subdirectory you are in. If you use a Mac you probably know that your FINDER application shows you where files are in various directories and on Windows it is something called EXPLORER. With FINDER OR EXPLORER you can visually see where you are when you point to a file. But imagine you are working just from a single line like a command prompt on a terminal and you could be lost as to where the heck you are. Therefore, we are going to start by modifying the BASH file in a way that make that prompt show you information.
Beleive it or not, it is also good practice to have copies of what you are working with on more than one computer. The term ‘Environment’ is commonly used to describe if you are on a ‘local’ computer or on a ‘host’ computer; such as making program changes on your local machine and pushing them after testing to a host machine where they are seen by others as a website. There is something discussed later called ‘GIT/GITHUB’ regarding your connection between a local computer and a remote computer.
Since you want to be clear about which environment you are working in and what subdirectory the file you are looking at is located in on that computer, it pays to do a little something special to move beyond your standard ‘Command Prompt’.
Show me how to improve that Command Prompt to know where I am