💻 Why the terminal still matters

Starting in the 1970s, the terminal, popularized by Unix, has been a mainstay in computing. Many developers today, and increasingly non-developers, are using the terminal. In previous years the terminal was defined by a physical monitor and keyboard displaying green text. Today, it is typically an application that provides only a command prompt and text interface. Many developers still edit code in terminal-based applications such as Vim or Helix. Why?

There are likely many reasons, but I think the most important one is that the terminal is the most powerful computing environment ever invented.

"What!" you say, "Look at my iPad, that is the most powerful computer interface ever. I'm not going back to DOS."

Notice, I said "powerful," not "nice." Yes, an iPad is definitely nice to use, but it is limited. You can only run the handful of apps you have installed, and use them in prescribed ways. The terminal has hundreds (if not thousands) of commands and applications preinstalled on every Linux system. You can compose commands into scripts. There is no limit to what you can do.

The terminal is the AI-native platform. Agents are very good at running and composing the hundreds of terminal commands. The terminal still matters, and with AI, more than ever.