Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are software applications that provide a comprehensive environment for developers to write code, test, and debug. Put simply - this is where devs write our code instead of an arbitrary text editor + terminal. The most popular IDE is probably VS code.

1. Visual Studio Code: Developed by Microsoft, Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a free and open-source IDE that supports a wide range of programming languages. It offers features like IntelliSense (code completion), debugging, Git integration, and extensions that provide additional functionality.
2. Replit: A browser-based IDE that allows for developing, compiling, and running code entirely from the web. This allows for many cool sharing features as well as a number of templates to start your program from. Replit also has features like bounties and copilot where you can create rewards for completing tasks in your codebase - or having an AI helper/ghostwriter to copilot and help you while you develop (for a fee)

If you’re looking for a python specific IDE to help you get started learning, there are several IDEs that are popular among Python developers - a popular ones is:

1. Jupyter Notebook: Jupyter Notebook is a web-based interactive development environment that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text. It is often used for data analysis and visualization in Python. (VERY BEGINNER FRIENDLY)

Ultimately, the best IDE for Python development depends on your personal preferences and the specific requirements of your project, but I would recommend VS Code for most, and Jupyter Notebook for the most user friendly and python focused option.

Install pip python pkg manager

This is a package manager that makes installing certain python related packages much easier. Instead of needing to find versions of everything online, we can just use pip.

sudo apt install python3 - linux

brew install python - mac

python.org - windows

python3 –m pip install –upgrade pip

Using Visual Studio Code

Here are some tips and tricks for using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) effectively for Python development:

Installation

First, you need to download and install VS Code from the official website. Once it's installed, launch it and select the Extensions tab on the left sidebar. Search for the "Python" extension and install it. This extension provides support for Python syntax, debugging, and code formatting. (I have jupyter notebook and js extensions installed too but don’t worry about those).