Stage 2 · Lesson 1 of 8
Navigating files in the shell
The is a text window where you control your computer by typing commands, and every developer tool assumes you can use it. Start by moving around and looking. pwd shows where you are, ls lists files and cd changes folder.
cd .. goes up one level and cd ~ goes to your home folder. Then create and move things with mkdir, touch, cp, mv and rm. Remember that rm has no recycle bin: deleted means gone.
Learn the difference between a , which starts from where you are (../data/file.txt), and an , which starts from the top (/home/ada/data/file.txt). Also learn and the up arrow for history. On Windows, use Git Bash or WSL so the commands match the tutorials. Git, compilers and all start from here.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- CourseFreeThe Missing Semester of Your CS Education
MIT · Beginner
MIT lectures on dev tools; the shell, shell tools and version control lectures are enough
- GitHub repoFreeGitHub Skills: Introduction to GitHub
GitHub · Beginner
Free one-hour exercise: branch, commit, open and merge a pull request