Who Are You Without the CLI?

The Unsung Superpowers of a Developer — essay & resources

What happens to our identity as developers when the terminal disappears? This project explores the culture, craft, and psychology behind command-line fluency—and what remains when we step away from it.

---

🧭 Overview

This repository hosts the article “Who Are You Without the CLI? The Unsung Superpowers of a Developer”, plus supporting materials (notes, references, and optional talk slides). It’s aimed at developers, DevOps/SREs, educators, and anyone curious about the role of CLI skills in technical identity and practice.

✨ What’s inside

• essay/ — the main article (Markdown-first).
• assets/ — images/diagrams used by the article or slides.
• slides/ — optional talk deck (PDF/Keynote/Reveal.js).
• notes/ — research and extended references.
• README.md — you are here.

Don’t see all these folders yet? No stress. They’re suggested structure; add what you use and delete the rest.

🔗 Quick links

• Article (raw Markdown): essay/who-are-you-without-the-cli.md
• Slides (if present): slides/
• References: notes/references.md
• Live Demo: GitHub Pages

🧑‍🍳 How to use this repo

• Read it: open the Markdown in your editor or on GitHub.
• Share it: link directly to the Markdown or export to PDF.
• Present it: open slides/ and use the deck as a talk outline.
• Remix it: fork and adapt for meetups, workshops, or team onboarding.

🧠 Core ideas (TL;DR)

• The terminal is more than a tool; it’s a craft identity.
• GUIs are great for discovery; CLIs are great for power & composition.
• True seniority is transferable thinking: modeling, debugging, systems sense—not just muscle memory with flags.
• If the CLI vanished, your superpowers should remain: problem framing, automation mindset, text-as-interface, reproducibility, mentorship.

🛠️ Build & formatting (optional)

No build is required to read the essay. If you want a site:

• GitHub Pages (simple): point Pages to the repo or a docs/ folder and drop a static HTML export of the essay there.
• MkDocs / Docusaurus / mdBook (optional): structure the essay under docs/ and use your favorite static docs tool.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Ideas include:

• Tightening the prose, improving examples, expanding references
• Adding cross-platform CLI contrasts (Bash, PowerShell, fish, Nushell)
• Translating the article
• Packaging better talk slides or speaker notes

Pull Requests

1. Fork & create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/topic
2. Make changes with clear commit messages
3. Run spell/grammar checks if possible
4. Open a PR and describe the "why", not just the "what"

Issues

• Use issues for ideas, typos, missing references, or questions.
• Be specific; link to lines/sections when possible.

🧩 Suggested roadmap

📚 References & further reading

See notes/references.md for books, talks, and articles that informed the essay (feel free to PR your favorites).

🪪 License

• Text & images (essay, slides): CC BY 4.0 (attribution required).
• Code samples (if any): MIT.

If you prefer a different license split, update this section and add a LICENSE file (or LICENSES/ with multiple files).

👤 Authors

Nick Scherbakov & GPT-5 (and contributors) Questions or kudos? Open an issue or PR.

---

⭐ If this resonates, star the repo and share with fellow devs

Help spread the word about modern CLI tools and developer culture. Your star means a lot! 🚀

📢 Share this project

• Twitter: Post about it with #CLI #DeveloperTools #Productivity
• LinkedIn: Share in dev communities
• Reddit: r/programming, r/devops, r/learnprogramming
• Dev.to: Write a post featuring this repo