Lesson Hero Illustration Image
Newline Image

Day 27

File Systems and Types

If you were the captain of a ship, I basically just showed you how to sail a ship, but did not tell you if you'd be in the Atlantic, Bering Strait, or a bathtub 🛀.

This post is part of the series 30 Days of Web Development.

In this series, we start from the basics and walk through everything you need to know to get started with Web Development.

Newline Image

File Systems and Types
#

File System
#

If you were the captain of a ship, I basically just showed you how to sail a ship, but did not tell you if you'd be in the Atlantic, Bering Strait, or a bathtub 🛀.

We now have a better understanding of how to navigate around our computer, but what exactly are you navigating in?

Your computer uses a File System to organize everything on it, and it is this File System that you're navigating around when inside the terminal. Whenever you are moving files, creating folders, or deleting things you are doing those things on the computer's File System.

The File System is your terminals equivalent of the captain's bathtub.

File Types
#

The File System is made up of two types of files:

  1. Data files. Think anything that contains data, text files, word docs, images, mp3, etc.

For example, the "shell-script-practice.sh file that we played with on Day 23 is a data file. Another example is the "html-practice.html" file we played with on Day 8 while learning about HTML. One's an HTML file, the other a Shell Scripting file, but they are both data files.

  1. Executable files. These are files that when you open them, they execute something. It's a good bet that any file in your Applications folder is an executable file.

All of these files run a program on your computer. When you open Adobe Illustrator or the Calculator application, you are running executable files.

 

This page is a preview of Your First 30 Days of Web Development

Get the rest of this chapter and 180+ pages of Web Development instruction for free.

The entire source code for this tutorial series can be found in the GitHub repo, which includes all the styles and code samples.

If at any point you feel stuck, have further questions, feel free to reach out to us by:

Course Author

Avatar Image

Angel Garbarino

👋 Hi! I’m Angel, the author of the book.

I am a self-taught Frontend developer. Not until I was in my early thirties did I seriously consider building up skills as a web developer. In all honesty, I wasn’t even sure what it meant to work as a web developer. All I knew was, I wanted to work on computers because I was decent at using them, and I was attracted to the job opportunities.

I wrote this book for the “me,” five years ago; for the person who is starting to think about what it might take to become a programmer or web developer. My path was convoluted, stressful, and inefficient. But it did not have to be.

I started by reading articles and seeking advice from friends. I continued with more articles, books, and online courses. As my skills or ability to fake-my-skills improved, I sought out consulting gigs. Fixing friends’ websites, and then being hired out as a consultant. On the job learning is great, but I had no idea what I was doing and stressed and slept little during these contracts.

Eventually, I landed a position at a web application company. I made friends, asked questions, and studied the skills I learned were needed for a job as a Frontend Developer. The weekend studying paid off, I applied for a Frontend Developer position, and I got it!

In this book, I will cover the fundamentals. But more importantly, I will talk about why they are the fundamentals. My goal is not to teach you a specific skill like HTML. Instead, I show you how to navigate what’s ahead of you. I get you set up for your next steps, whether that’s a path of self-learning or attending a bootcamp. By the end of this book, you will be able to make an educated decision about your future and understand the steps and commitment it will take to get there.