WHY ?

Imagine This Scene:

You’re an IT teacher, brimming with hope for the future generation of tech-savvy professionals. You assign a simple task in the terminal: change to a specific directory. What do you hear?

Click. Clack. Tap. Tap. Click.

“cd documents/assignments/spring_2024/final_project_version1”

Letter. By. Painful. Letter.

No Tab. No hope.

The air is heavy with frustration, and your heart sinks as you wonder:
“How have we failed them so profoundly?”

The Pain of the Tab-less Society

Whether in classrooms or corporate offices, there’s a universal agony shared by IT professionals who witness this travesty. Watching someone painstakingly type out commands when Tab completion exists is like watching someone use a rotary phone in 2024—it’s painful, unnecessary, and frankly, infuriating.

The worst part? It’s not just students. Oh no, colleagues in otherwise reputable companies do this too. These are people entrusted with servers, codebases, and critical systems, yet they’re still typing out kubernetes-deployment.yaml without Tab.

Why? Why?!

The Arguments We Hear

  • “I don’t have time to learn autocompletion.”
    → Really? You don’t have time to press Tab? It’s literally faster than typing another letter.

  • “I know the full path by heart.”
    → Oh, congratulations on your memory skills! Too bad they’re irrelevant when you mistype and get a No such file or directory error.

  • “I don’t need it. I’m already fast.”
    → Fast? Compared to what? A tortoise?

Why Everyone Should Learn Autocompletion

  1. It’s Instant Gratification
    Learning autocompletion takes approximately 30 seconds. Press Tab, and boom: instant results. No tutorials, no exams, no certifications required.

  2. It Saves Time and Sanity
    Tab eliminates the need to type long paths or filenames. Over a week, you save hours. Over a year? A lifetime of keystrokes.

  3. It’s a Life Skill
    Using the terminal without autocompletion is like driving a car without power steering. You can do it, but why would you?

  4. It’s a Basic Courtesy
    Watching someone work in a terminal without Tab is excruciating. For the love of your colleagues, your teachers, and your future self—use it.

A Healthy Reflex for Every IT Professional

Autocompletion isn’t a bonus skill—it’s table stakes for anyone who touches a terminal. If you type git com<Tab> and don’t feel the joy of instant completion, are you even living?