0.0.Overview

0 - Setting up a Development Environment

What's in this section

In this section, we are going to set up all the software in order to be able to actually start running the code we write. There are three main tools that are used in the software development process:

• An editor - where you write the code itself
• A compiler - which turns the code into a program you can run
• A debugger - a piece of software that analyses the program and can look at exactly what it's doing while it's running

We are going to be setting up the editor and the compiler. A debugger, while incredibly useful, isn't required for your code to work, so we'll deal with that later.

Why not an IDE?

You may have seen this term before if you've looked up stuff about programming. IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. It's a piece of software that combines all three of the above tools, alongside additional features. IDEs are widely used in the software industry. However, for learning purposes it is very useful to know how each tool works on its own before combining them all into one monolithic do-it-all program.

We will be using an IDE later on, just not to start with.

Page Overview

• 0.1 - Setting up a text editor
  • Install Visual Studio Code
• 0.2 - Setting up a compiler
  • Show file extensions in Windows Explorer
  • Install Mingw-w64
• 0.3 - Learning the Command Prompt
  • Navigate and run commands in CMD
  • Adding Mingw-w64 to the path
• 0.4 - Putting them together
  • Compiling code

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