In this day and age there are nearly an infinite amount of tools that one person or the other is recommending to us as Web Developers.

Of course it would hurt no one to have another skill under their belt, but would it actually be useful?

There are definitely a few scenarios where this skill will serve you well. In my experience, this is especially true with PHP which is part of the LAMP stack (Linux Apache MySql PHP).

I know many developers discourage the use of PHP due to the unholy amount of diversity in the language because of it’s old age, and also performance-wise there are better alternatives. ☉ ‿ ⚆

Regardless of this, PHP is still used by ~78.9% of all websites that utilize a server-side language. Thus making PHP still quite a relevant topic.

But why would knowing Linux Shell Commands help with developing in PHP? Can’t I just learn the PHP versions of the commands?

I would argue that understanding what the PHP commands do to the underlying Linux system to achieve your desired result is a very good thing to know.

Not only because you will get a deeper understanding of commands commonly used in PHP but you’ll also be able to work in the Linux shell effectively when needed.

The syntax between the commands in PHP and the Linux Shell can be extremely similar. Take the following comparison, both instances achieve the same result:

# Removing a directory in PHP
rmdir('exampledir');

# Removing a directory in the Linux Shell
rmdir exampledir

But I don’t use PHP in my workflow… So is this skill useless?

NO, not by a long shot. In fact I recently set up a server/droplet to run NodeJS through Digital Ocean. I had to use Linux Shell Commands to navigate the files, edit files, and start the server’s service, and honestly knowing Shell Commands aided me tons.

Linux powers the majority of servers in the world.

The truth is, most of the services that allow you to host your websites, at the core are Linux. So if you ever need to interact with the underlying OS, knowing the commands to do so will save you quite a bit of time.

Conclusion

In the end, it really depends if you are going to utilize the skill and if you have time to learn it.

I personally just completed a course on the subject and find it useful when I need to code in PHP or set up a new droplet. You may not use Linux Shell Commands often, but when you have to, knowledge on the subject will serve you well.

That’s it for this post. I do hope this post helped with your decision of whether or not to learn Linux Shell Commands.

Let me know your thoughts and Happy Coding! ヽ༼ ຈل͜ຈ༼ ▀̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿▀̿ ̿༽Ɵ͆ل͜Ɵ͆ ༽ﾉ

Hey, I'm William Bojczuk.

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