How can I open a Finder window from the Terminal on a Mac?

I am still getting used to the Mac OS X.

I frequently find myself using the terminal to navigate between directories and carry out file copy/move operations because I am feeling resistant to Finder and every other Mac file manager utility I have tried so far.

But, sometimes, you just want to be able to open a Finder window, looking at a given directory, without leaving the command line.

open /this/path

works for that. E.g., you can do things like

open ~
open .
open /usr/bin

Of course, I was unable to located the documentation for open on support.apple.com when I wanted to link to Apple’s online documentation. Instead, you’ll either have to type man open if you have a Mac, or visit open if you don’t, to get more information on this handy command.

Using a Mac for the first time since the late 80s has reminded me how hard old habits die, which is why I am using this computer basically as a *nix machine with some nifty graphics for now.