We have all been there, working on code that continuously fails while staring at a dull and colorless command-line. However, we are in luck, as there is a way to make the constant error messages look less depressing. By changing our shell to one which enables a colorful themed command-line and fancy features like automatic text completion and web search your code won’t just fail with ease, but also with style!

A shell is your command-line interpreter, meaning you use it to process commands and output results of the command-line. The shell therefore also holds the power to add a little zest to the command-line. The most well-known shell is bash, which comes pre-installed on most UNIX systems. However, there exist many different shells, all with different pros and cons. The one we will focus on is called Z Shell or zsh for short.

Zsh was initially only for UNIX and UNIX-Like systems, but its popularity has made it accessible on most systems now. Like bash, zsh is extremely customizable and their syntax so similar that most bash commands will work in zsh. The benefit of zsh is that it comes with additional features, plugins and options, and open-source frameworks with large communities. The framework which we will look into is called Oh My Zsh.

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