Learn Enough Developer Tools to Be Dangerous: Command Line, Text Editor, and Git Version Control Essentials

Chapter 1

Basics

Welcome to Learn Enough Developer Tools to Be Dangerous! This tutorial is designed to teach you three essential tools—the command line, a text editor, and version control— needed for modern software development (or, as I prefer to call it, “computer magic” (Box 1.1)). It is aimed both at those who work with software developers and those who aspire to become developers themselves.

Box 1.1: The Magic of Computers

Computers may be as close as we get to magic in the real world: We type incantations into a machine, and—if the incantations are right—the machine does our bidding. To perform such magic, computer witches and wizards rely not only on words, but also on wands, potions, and an ancient tome or two. Taken together, these ...