So, I'm a developer. Most of the time, developers need to be able to see all of the files on their systems, not simply those that the OS considers necessary and good. Specifically, Eclipse - my IDE of choice - names its system files and folders with a dot (period) prefix. This convention is the same convention that Mac uses to hide system files from being visible in Finder. Files and folders with dot prefixes being visible makes Mac look all Unixy - and we wouldn't want Mac to have his roots showing, now would we?
Long story short, I found some command line statements that reveal and then re-hide these important files.
To show the files:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
To hide system files:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false
I found these commands here: Gorkee | Files, Finder, Mac, Type, Just.
