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The Front-End Developer's Guide to the Terminal

joshwcomeau.com

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Re: The Front-End Developer's Guide to the Terminal

#3

Post by bern4444 »

There's very little in here that is _unique_ to front end developers. This is more of an introduction to the terminal article. You have a web background and so perhaps wanted to frame this with that context but I think this is better off with a title of something more akin to `Introduction to the Terminal`.

The only thing in here related to web is the `npm` command. Everything else, git, terminal tabs, meaning of `$` is generic to any engineer, front end, back end, ML, AI etc.

What's missing that is critical in any Here's How to Use the Terminal article is showing the `man` command. I think showing other popular commands like `mv`, `cp`, `pwd`, and using `ctrl-r` to reverse search should also be included.

I also think Hyper is not a great terminal to start out with. The default terminal that ships on someone's computer is usually the best. If you're going to use any other terminal emulator, I'd say iTerm2 or Alacritty should be suggested.

Re: The Front-End Developer's Guide to the Terminal

#4

Post by yewenjie »

frau_wacholder wrote: post #2

it's pretty crazy that this article only mention hyper or the built in vs code terminal as it's two recommendations, when excellent terminals like alacritty, kitty and terminator exist and aren't written in javascript

I have been enjoying Foot Terminal of late - minimal, fast, Wayland-first. Not sure about complete feature-parity, but I personally did not miss any feature of Alacritty.

https://codeberg.org/dnkl/foot

Re: The Front-End Developer's Guide to the Terminal

#5

Post by andrewmcwatters »

bern4444 wrote: post #3

There's very little in here that is _unique_ to front end developers. This is more of an introduction to the terminal article. You have a web background and so perhaps wanted to frame this with that context but I think this is better off with a title of something more akin to `Introduction to the Terminal`. The only thing in here related to web is the `npm` command. Everything else, git, terminal tabs, meaning of `$`…

POSIX-1.2017, man7, where Ubuntu man pages are online and other distro manual pages, macOS man page differences, understanding shell built-ins vs commands, etc.

Yeah. I don’t think I have ever once seen a blog article point to primary sources. MDN, for example for web developers, not a primary source.

Sometimes I wonder if people ever ask themselves how people answering questions on Stack Overflow or people writing Medium articles found out what they’re teaching to others.

People are too afraid of reading documentation.

Re: The Front-End Developer's Guide to the Terminal

#6

Post by elipsey »

I'm kind of trying to go the other way. I am amazed at how productive great front-end/js-first developers are with even just a browser console --- but I am totally flumoxed by this environment, and have trouble sinking my fingernails into the first ledge on that learning curve.

Is there a "terminal developer's guide to front end"?

Re: The Front-End Developer's Guide to the Terminal

#7

Post by moondev »

frau_wacholder wrote: post #2

it's pretty crazy that this article only mention hyper or the built in vs code terminal as it's two recommendations, when excellent terminals like alacritty, kitty and terminator exist and aren't written in javascript

Probably since those terminals are not cross platform and seems like the guide is written in that context. Alacritty is but not the most user friendly for beginners.

Re: The Front-End Developer's Guide to the Terminal

#8

Post by ezequiel-garzon »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #5
bern4444 wrote: post #3

There's very little in here that is _unique_ to front end developers. This is more of an introduction to the terminal article. You have a web background and so perhaps wanted to frame this with that context but I think this is better off with a title of something more akin to `Introduction to the Terminal`. The only thing in here related to web is the `npm` command. Everything else, git, terminal tabs, meaning of `$`…

POSIX-1.2017, man7, where Ubuntu man pages are online and other distro manual pages, macOS man page differences, understanding shell built-ins vs commands, etc. Yeah. I don’t think I have ever once seen a blog article point to primary sources. MDN, for example for web developers, not a primary source. Sometimes I wonder if people ever ask themselves how people answering questions on Stack Overflow or people writing M…

MDN, for example for web developers, not a primary source.

I’m used to visiting the HTML standard, I think it’s quite friendly considering how much it has grown… CSS2 was still doable for me, but I find the current mesh of CSS standards completely impenetrable at this point. And with JavaScript plus the DOM… yeah, I’ll take MDN as almost primary, an authoritative encyclopedia for web development.

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