Discussion on:

Navigating the Mac Shell

Thank you for continuing this series. I'm familiar with most of the basics from my scant interaction with Linux. I didn't know about the Ctrl-J. How is it technically more aggressive than Ctrl-C? I look forward to learning some OSX-specific shell tips and tricks in the future.

I think one of the most useful tools in the shell environment is the command "man" which is short for manual. I also use the "-k term" option which is a search of "term" in the manuals.
So "man ls" will return the manual page for the "ls" command.

I've only looked at the Mac Shell once or twice, but I recall noticing that it's a standard bash (Bourne-Again SHell) interface. There are tons of on-line references for bash, as well as a few good books out there. I believe the O'Reilly Nutshell book on bash is pretty good.

I don't really want to start a windows/mac war here, but I find it ironic that this article makes this sound like such a wonderful hidden feature! I think it is telling of the way MAC was built and the audience to which it speaks.

The command window in MS Windows and the Terminal in Linux are both rather well known by users, and although the general user may not use them much (if at all), nobody is surprised when you go to open one up... yet, surprise surprise, there is a similar window on MAC...