Ars Asks: Share your shell and show us your tricked-out terminals!

Key Points:

• Lee Hutchinson reflects on his long-term engagement with command-line interfaces (CLI), noting how the CLI remains indispensable despite the rise of graphical user interfaces, and shares his personal journey from Windows to MacOS and Linux driven by his growing reliance on Unix-like shells.
• He highlights his customized terminal setup, including a bash function that times commands and displays duration and exit status in the prompt, as well as a similar fish shell function for MacOS, emphasizing the practical benefits of these tweaks for productivity and session management.
• Hutchinson expresses a fondness for colorful terminal output, using tools like GRC (Generic Colorizer) and aliases to enhance readability and enjoyment, while acknowledging that terminal preferences are highly personal and that he remains loyal to MacOS’s Terminal.app despite other popular alternatives.
• He also discusses his Vim configuration, detailing specific settings and plugins that improve usability and aesthetics, such as syntax highlighting, search behavior tweaks, tab settings, and the use of Vim-Airline for a better status bar, illustrating how customization enhances his editing workflow.
• Finally, Hutchinson invites readers to share their own terminal customizations and tricks, celebrating the vibrant community around CLI tools and affirming that the post-GUI era remains accessible and engaging, especially with personalized touches like color and fonts.