“Something isn’t going right!” You scream into the night and/or in lab. Check the following!

“File not found” errors

Are you in the right directory?

Solution: Typed pwd to see where you’re at, and think real hard. On OS X you can also type cd, hit the spacebar, and then drag in a folder from Terminal to make sure you’re navigating to the right place.

Solution 2: Use tab to autocomplete filename in case you’re writing it wrong.

Changes are not showing up

Are you looking at/editing the right file?

A lot of times people copy files from one place to another, then edit the old one. Maybe you had one on your desktop, and moved it to Desktop/class-20, but then you keep editing the one on the desktop.

Solution: Close your file in Atom, then open it again.

Can’t get into a folder

It’s probably a typo.

Solution: A common reason is people not putting a space before arguments - cdDesktop instead of cd Desktop. This shows up when you do the drag-from-Terminal thing. Type cd, press space, then drag in the folder.

Solution 2: Maybe you have spaces in your filename, which screws things up. If you’re typing, use tab to autocomplete. You should be doing that anyway, though.

Command isn’t doing the right thing

Computers always do the right thing! It’s always human error. Mostly.

Solution: Check your command using the command reference above.