Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations

3 THE COMMAND LINE INTERFACE

Back in the days of the command-line interface, users were all Morlocks who had to convert their thoughts into alphanumeric symbols and type them in, a grindingly tedious process that stripped away all ambiguity, laid bare all hidden assumptions, and cruelly punished laziness and imprecision.

—Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning … Was the Command Line

If you’re like most people, you interface with your computer primarily via its graphical desktop environment: you move the pointer with your mouse or trackpad and click icons to run programs and open documents. Programs open in windows that you can resize, maximize, minimize, and drag around the screen. You can run various programs at once in separate windows ...