Command Line My First Time

Do you remember your first time using the command line?*

I don't remember mine because I grew up before the Desktop Model replaced the Command Line Model as the standard way of talking with your computer. But I do introduce a lot of people to the Unix command line every year, and it's often their first exposure to any kind of command line.

At first, the command line does its best to scare the shit out of everybody I bring to meet it. The people I train are pretty good with computers and they feel very confident in the world of Firefox versus IE, Flash upgrades, and character encoding preferences. They knew how to turn pop-up blockers on and off in every major browser. The command line makes them feel like Alzheimer's patients crawling in the dark. They ask: "I know this sounds like a stupid question -- I know it sounds stupid to me -- but where are we?"

It's not a stupid question. It's the best question ever. Where are we?

We're downtown in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
We're sitting at your desk.
We're staring at your monitor.
We're looking at the contents of a single window on your computer's Desktop.
We're looking at a little bit of text that says:

galadriel [bin]>

We're completely lost.

This is my favorite part of the training exercise. I explain:

On the Desktop we are Person Size and we work with things on the desktop the same way we work with the papers and pens and books we touch everyday.

In the Command Line, we are Vole-cute, Vole-clever, and Vole Size.** We burrow through our world rather than pushing paper on its surface. To the untrained eye used to looking at the Person Size world, it looks like we're in the Burrow. But the Vole knows more. The vole knows how to figure it exactly where she is in her burrow. She knows how to tell if other voles are around and if they've made any renovations to the burrow. Learning to use the command line is learning to the directory structure as if it were a map-sized real world space with landmarks, pathways, rules, and shortcuts. The structures that take up as much space as a filing cabinet on the Desktop take up whole continents in the command line.



* The standard model for how people interact with computers is the Desktop Model. In the Desktop Model use the mouse and keyboard to open, close, and move around folders and icons on a "virtual desktop". The command line is a different model for interacting with a computer. In the command line model, the user interacts with the computer only through text. The computer says something to you and gives you a space, a prompt, to say something back. Ever been to an group therapy session where you pass a baton or a significant object around and the person holding it has the mic? The command line model is just like this except it's just you and the computer passing the talking stick back and forth.

** Or Meercat, Wombat, Ant, depending on my mood.