Any serious OSX developer is going to end up spending time on the command line solving some problems. To that end here is several example of how to use open:
To open a file as if you had double clicked in the finder, use this command. This will open myfile.jpg in the default jpg viewer.
open myfile.jpg
Many time you find yourself with a file that you want to open in a specific application. For this you can use the -a flag. This will work if the application is in a well known place. If the application is not in a well known place you can use the entire path to the application.
open -a Safari myfile.jpg
open -a /MyAdobeApps/Photoshop.app myfile.jpg
As shorthand for TextEdit, just use the -e file
open -e README.1st
If you have a program that generates output, you can pipe the results to open and have it show in TextEdit.
cal | open -f
And finally, you can also use this to open directories in Finder:
open .
open ~/Desktop
