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Snappy Tuts

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Master the CLI Like a Programming Language

#cli #docker #programming #tutorial

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🧠 What If Your Terminal Was a Language?

We treat Bash or Zsh as a tool to run other tools, but never as a craft. What if we told you:

The shell is a full programming environment.
And mastering it is your realest dev power-up.

This article will show you how to:

  • Stop copy-pasting random shell commands
  • Use the terminal like a language, not a cheat sheet
  • Build mini programs in your shell with intention
  • Speed up your workflow across all stacks

💡 The Mindset Shift: From Command User to Shell Developer

Most developers use the terminal reactively:

“I found this command on StackOverflow, hope it works…”

But power users treat it like this:

“This shell pipeline is my custom compiler.”

🧠 Language Parallels:

Concept Programming Language Shell Equivalent
Variables x = 5 x=5
Functions def greet() greet() { echo hi; }
Conditionals if ... else if [[ $x -gt 10 ]]; then
Composition Function chaining `cat file grep foo sort`
Scripting .py, .js files .sh, .bashrc, aliases

🛠️ Part 1: Build a Shell Toolkit (Like a Dev Environment)

Just like you have IDE extensions, linters, and formatters, you can build a shell environment that thinks for you.

🔧 Tools to Install

  • fd: find on steroids
  • bat: Pretty cat
  • fzf: Fuzzy everything
  • rg (ripgrep): Super-fast grep
  • tldr: Simplified man pages
  • exa: Modern ls
  • gh: GitHub CLI

⚡ Part 2: Write Shell “Functions” Like Real Code

Instead of rewriting commands 100 times:

backup_code() {
  tar -czf "backup-$(date +%s).tar.gz" ./src
}
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Now you can just run:

backup_code
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✅ Reusability
✅ Documentation (in your .bashrc)
✅ Mini-language fluency

🧪 Part 3: Create Language-Like Toolchains in Shell

Think of the CLI like function pipelines:

cat logs.txt | grep ERROR | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
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This is:

  • Data ingestion (cat)
  • Filtering (grep)
  • Transforming (sort)
  • Reducing (uniq, sort -nr)

Just like you'd do in a functional language — but in seconds.

🔍 Part 4: Make Your Shell Self-Documenting

You already document Python and JS code — why not your CLI?

✅ Example: 

# ~/.bash_aliases

# Recursively find large files over 100MB
find_large() {
  find . -type f -size +100M -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }'
}
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This is now:

  • Searchable
  • Composable
  • Shareable

Create a whole library of functions, version it with Git, and back it up.

📦 Part 5: Package Your Shell Tools for Others

Yes, you can actually package your CLI creations like a mini-library.

🧪 Tools:

  • chezmoi: Manage dotfiles as code
  • dotbot: Declarative setup scripts
  • shfmt: Autoformatter for shell code

You can even publish your own:

curl -s https://yoursite.sh/install | bash
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🧠 Shell Programming Power-Ups

Action Benefit
Create named shell functions Stop repeating & start scripting
Build fuzzy-finders Autocomplete your workflows
Log every command to a timestamped file Instant audit/debug
Use time to profile your pipelines Optimize I/O bottlenecks
Combine jq + curl + gh Build custom APIs with zero code files

🧰 Useful Shell Snippets (Ready to Steal)

📂 Search for a file in all git repos: 

find ~/code -name ".git" -type d | while read d; do
  repo=$(dirname "$d")
  echo "Searching in $repo"
  grep -r "TODO" "$repo"
done
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🌐 Download a webpage and extract all links: 

curl -sL https://example.com | grep -Eo '(http|https)://[^"]+'
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⌛ Profile command time: 

time ls -lahR /
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🧭 TL;DR

Problem Fix
“I forget shell commands constantly” Build a shell language you own
“My CLI is chaos” Treat it like a dev environment
“I write the same command 20 times a week” Make it a function
“I don’t know how to use the terminal well” Think in pipelines, not commands

🔗 Shell-as-Language Starter Pack

Resource Link
Bash Guide https://guide.bash.academy
Advanced Shell https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide
TLDR Pages https://tldr.sh
ShellHacks https://www.shellhacks.com
Cheat.sh https://cheat.sh
Explainshell https://explainshell.com
FZF Tricks https://github.com/junegunn/fzf#examples

🤪 Dev Emoji Theater

🧙 “I don’t write scripts. I cast spells in Bash.”
⚔️ “Pipelines are my weapon of choice.”
🚀 “One alias to rule them all.”
🐚 “Shell scripting is just functional programming with landmines.”
🧠 “My terminal is smarter than your backend.”
📜 “My .bashrc is 400 lines and glorious.”
💡 “The shell isn’t legacy — it’s legendary.”

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🔓 Premium Bundles for Devs. Who Want to Break Free

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🔧 Quick Kits (Take 1 Product That Actually Works for You)

These are personal wins turned into plug-and-play kits — short instruction guides:

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Top comments (2)

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nevodavid profile image
Nevo David •

pretty cool, honestly - i always wondered if taking time to level up my shell game actually changes day-to-day dev life or if it’s more hype, you think that sort of investment pays off big in the long run?

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snappy_tuts profile image
Snappy Tuts •

tell you thoughts up in here