Working With Interfaces: Understanding What’s Behind the Screen

There is no doubt in my mind that first month of COMM 200 has taught me more about working with computers than any “technology” class ever has. I thought I had a good understanding of computers, but it was only a simplified version. Since my understanding of computers has changed, learning about the command line interface has shown me three different things. The first thing is acquiring a better understand and hands on experience with the program. Next, the program made me realized how left out I was of all the workings behind the screen and, finally, how working with the command line interface will further impact my use with computers.

Starting the command line interface lesson was a challenge, but also an interesting experience. Using Git Bash to interact directly with the computer was really cool. Seeing how such simple commands could cause multiple actions on the computer revealed the efficiency of interfaces. They provide an easier way to access different files at once. Two commands that I found myself using the most was “ls” and “cd ..” Simple commands like these help me easily move from files and see what documents are within each one. But, as more commands were being added it was harder to keep track of which ones did what. Along with this came the reoccurring idea that computers aren’t the brightest. Accidentally hitting one wrong key led to “command not found” and a lot of frustration. But this wasn’t the worst thing. To me, the problem working with interfaces in the very beginning requires a lot of adjustment and practice to be able to reach a level of adequate efficiency. This leads me to question if it is even worth it to adjust what I know to try and learn something totally new.

Trying to adjust my current practices to seem hard, but not impossible. It will take time and practice but makes me think why didn’t I learn this when I was younger? When first learning to work with computers, I was taught the very basics like being told to click on the picture of the folder to go to documents and other actions. Interacting with computers back then was very simplified which helps young kids to understand computers but not the workings behind it. Personally, not knowing how computers worked has left this weird feeling that a computer has the power over me. Now, interacting with a computer through the command line interface makes me feel as though I have the power over the computer giving me the idea to try and change my computing ways.

Being able to finally understand the coding behind the screen represents that there are always going to be other things at work when we click or type something. When things don’t happen instantly many people, including myself, get very annoyed that its not working. Having the ability to use another software to try again in a different way reflects how command line interface changes my own actions and thoughts. It reinforces the idea that there is always different ways to do things and interacting with the command line interface proves that.

Command Line Interface Cheat Sheet

pwd: lets you know where you currently are

ls: lists files

help: shows all commands

cd: changes current directory (..) to go back one ( — ) to go back to the very beginning

explorer: opens the file

mv: moves the file

cp: copies a file

rm: deletes a file