Why Command-Line Skills Are Essential for Developers

In a production environment, time is critical, and relying on a GUI isn’t always feasible. Developers often need to work directly with the command line to troubleshoot, gather information, and execute tasks efficiently. From experience, I’ve learned that waiting for a DevOps engineer or tech lead to provide key insights can slow down resolution times and create unnecessary dependency.

But you don’t spend all your time in production. What’s even more important is the time you spend doing your actual work.

Let’s dive into why mastering the basics of the command line can make your life easier—and inspire your colleagues to do the same.

1. Easier Navigation and System?Control

The command line offers unparalleled efficiency when navigating file systems and managing resources. Tasks that might take multiple clicks in a GUI can be done in seconds with a few keystrokes. This speed and precision are especially crucial in high-pressure scenarios, like production troubleshooting where looking into each directory one by one can be tiring and error-prone.

In my work, our product generates numerous reports. When handling multiple reports, they are often stored in nested directories. Imagine having to verify each report individually from hundreds of files generated in the past. You might think, “Just sort by date created,” but how many times can you repeat that process? And how many directories do you need to navigate to verify a single report?

A more efficient way to handle this is by running a simple find command:

find -type f -newermt <modified_date> -name <regex_to_match> -print        

This eliminates the need to constantly navigate through the file explorer, saving time and reducing the clutter in the taskbar.

1.1 Alias

Working on multiple projects simultaneously often means dealing with numerous file paths, which can be tedious to remember or navigate to repeatedly. Creating aliases for each path is a simple yet effective way to save time and streamline your workflow, allowing you to jump straight back into work without unnecessary delays.

This is just one example of how I use aliases. You can also create aliases for kubectl commands with specific configurations for different environments or set up ssh commands with predefined hosts, saving you from typing lengthy commands repeatedly.

2. Automation for Repetitive Tasks

When analyzing logs, developers often open a log file in a text editor, searching through it manually. However, using commands like grep, awk, and tail on the command line is far more efficient for filtering and analyzing logs.

Opening a log in a text editor, like Notepad, can be slow and cumbersome?—?especially with large files. While using VS Code might offer better search features, it’s still slower than the terminal. In the terminal, you can quickly filter and pinpoint specific entries without the overhead of loading large files into a GUI, saving both time and effort.

3. Talking the Same Language as DevOps: Bridging the Gap with Command-Line Skills

Ever talked to a DevOps person and felt like they speak a different language? By familiarizing yourself with the tools, commands, and workflows that DevOps teams use, developers can bridge the gap and work more efficiently together. This shared understanding minimizes miscommunication empowers developers to solve problems independently, and reduces friction between development and deployment.

This may not apply to all teams, especially if they use tools other than the command line. However, if your DevOps team relies on the command line, understanding their workflows can significantly improve collaboration.

4. You look?cool!

Let’s be honest?—?using the command line just feels cool. There’s something satisfying about typing commands and watching them work. It’s like being part of an exclusive club where only developers truly get what’s happening. Plus, when you know your way around the terminal, you can’t help but impress your peers with your command-line skills!

In fact, the only way I convinced my peers to start using the command line was by turning it into a challenge?—?seeing who could complete a task faster.

After reading all this, you might think I’m one of those people who uses Vim instead of an IDE like VS Code, but that’s not the point. GUIs have their place, but the problem arises when we over-rely on them. The key is finding the right balance, where speed and efficiency are maximized without sacrificing usability.

Disclaimer: I’m not a command-line expert or an expert in general. These are simply lessons I’ve learned through my own experience. There are likely better ways to execute some of these commands that I may not be aware of.

This article aims to raise awareness about how understanding the basics of individual commands can be incredibly powerful when combined, and how straightforward it can be to reason through solutions using them. Let me know if there is a better way to do any of the things mentioned here???

From my experience, the best way to learn the command line—or anything, really—is to learn it when you actually need it. Spending hours or days on courses just to memorize commands isn’t nearly as effective as solving a real problem. Every time you find yourself doing something repetitive in a GUI, ask yourself: "Can I automate this?" It doesn’t have to be in the terminal—just focus on solving the problems that are still unsolved, like that pesky popup that refuses to stay centered!

Stay Curious. Adios ??

This article was originally written on Medium.