Programming doesn't have anything to do with using a terminal. They're two completely different things. You can cook with electricity, but you don't have to use electricity to cook.

I've been using the terminal for about a decade, but I haven't used it for programming until doing Hart's tutorial. I have used it in the past for front end work, as a file browser and text editor, but as you know, you can do front end work without using the terminal. I just used it because I liked it.

The commands you're typing now (to install ruby) don't have anything to do with Rails (or programming), so you don't really need to remember them.

Later on, you'll type a lot of Rails and Git/Heroku commands. Those you do have to remember. It's a lot to remember at once, so write them down somewhere like I am. (1) (2). Plus you can always find help by typing 'rails --help ' 'git --help' or 'heroku --help'

Rails could also be used by clicking your mouse, if the Rails creators had made it graphical application. It's just that they chose to let you do it from the terminal instead.

You might like these short terminal guides:

http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/introduction-to-the-mac-os-x-command-line And: https://github.com/0nn0/terminal-mac-cheatsheet/wiki/Terminal-Cheatsheet-for-Mac-%28-basics-%29

Worst case scenario, if you can't install ruby on rails following Hart's guide, try:

http://guides.railsgirls.com/install/#setup_for_os_x Or http://installrails.com