4. Setting Up VS Code

Download and install VS Code! VS Code is a text editor built on open-source from Microsoft, that we will use to write code. It also has other coding features we will eventually learn how to use: an excellent debugger, built-in Git support, and numerous extensions you can download (for free!) to help enhance your coding experience!

[action]

Download VS Code on to your computer now!

Launch From The Command Line

We want to be able to open files from our terminal for ease of use! The terminal is a "command line interface" that will let you interact with your computer using only text, which can be more powerful than just using the graphics based apps you may be used to. You'll learn more about terminal set up in the coming chapters, but there's a quick way to enable it so that we're ready to go:

[action]

Follow these instructions so that typing code in your terminal will launch VS Code!

Make sure you drag VS Code into your Applications! This will be helpful for opening it later.

If this step is difficult for you, don't worry! We'll be covering the terminal in much more depth during Term 1.