It is a solid tool, but I have experienced it to be a bit sluggish at times. It provides a virtual *nix abstraction on top of the Windows API. On Windows, these applications seem to be called “command interpreters”, but they are analogous in concept to a *nix shell.įor the past year or two, I have used Cmder with its default ConEmu emulator.

We typically refer to these as terminals or consoles today.Ī shell is a text-based program that we execute from a terminal emulator. Terminal EmulatorĪ terminal emulator is a software application that runs inside a GUI environment emulating an old terminal. Technically, a terminal was a physical device (think text-only monitor) that collects input and displays output on an early computer. When trying to navigate around my Windows file system, I often struggle remembering to type dir instead of ls (for listing files), instead of & (for chaining operations), etc.įor this reason, I like to reach for *nix-ish solutions on Windows.

That could be changing but, for now, Windows makes sense as a primary environment.ĭespite using Windows, I began learning CLIs when I first started managing Ubuntu instances for hosting various applications. NET developer, Windows is my ideal platform due to first-class tooling ( Visual Studio). The new Windows Terminal has been an invaluable tool as I have been focusing on developing my CLI skills recently.

The new windows terminal