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| 7 | +## 2.1 Time to setup your computer to keep learning |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +Learning how to write software requires that you perform the task of actually writing software, not just reading about it. If this were a book on how to play guitar, would you keep reading it without ever trying to play the guitar? We thought not. Reading this book without following along and trying it out yourself would be like watching a marathon runner finish the race and thinking you’re ready to go run one yourself. We’ll stop with the analogies, but seriously, you need to get your software installed and running before we go farther. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +What scares us the most right now is that we just hit the most common point where novices, even those eager to learn programming, tend to fail, and we _really_ want to see you succeed. Now, you might be thinking, “Wait, really? We’re just getting started.” Yes, that’s exactly the point. In Leo’s popular Coursera course about learning Java programming \[1\], can you guess the point when most new leaners leave? Is it the challenging assignment that involves plotting earthquake markers on the globe in real time at the end of the course? No. It’s actually the warmup assignment where the learners must set up their programming environment. As such, we understand this could be a hurdle for you. We hope that with this not-so-subtle nudge, we can help you achieve all the goals you had in mind when you bought this book. It all starts with installing the software. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +### 2.1.1 Overview of the software in your programming environment |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +To set up and use Copilot easily, we’ll be installing the software editing tools used by novices and software engineers alike. The tools you will be using are GitHub, Copilot, Python, and Visual Studio Code. Of course, if you already have all these tools installed, jump to section “Our first programming problem” later in this chapter. |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +#### GitHub Account |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +GitHub is an industry standard tool for developing, maintaining, and storing software. We won’t be using GitHub in this book, however. We’re signing up for GitHub simply because you’ll need an account to get access to Copilot. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +Signing up for a GitHub account is free but, at the time of writing, they charge for Copilot. If you are a student, they will waive that fee. If you aren’t a student, as of writing, you can get a 30-day free trial. |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +You might ask why they charge for the service, and there’s a good answer. It’s expensive to build the GPT3 models (imagine thousands of computers running for a year to build the model) and there are costs they incur by providing predictions from the model (many machines are receiving your input, running it through the model, and generating your output). If you are not ready to commit to using Copilot, you could make a calendar note for roughly 25 days from the day you sign up and if you aren’t using Copilot at that time, just cancel. If, on the other hand, you have succeeded in learning how to write software with Copilot and are using it to improve your productivity at work or just as a hobby, keep it. |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +#### Python |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +Really any programming language would have worked for this book, but we picked Python because it is one of the most popular programming languages in the world and is the language we teach in our introductory courses at our universities. As we said in Chapter 1, compared to other languages Python is easier to read, easier to understand, and easier to write. For this book, Copilot will primarily be generating the code, not you. However, you will want to be able to read and understand the code generated by Copilot and Python is great for that. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +#### Visual Studio Code (VSCode) |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +You can use any text editor to program. However, if you want a nice programming environment where you can write code, easily get suggestions from Copilot, and run your code, VSCode is our preferred tool. VSCode is used by novices learning software and is well liked by students \[2\]. It’s also used globally by professional software engineers, which means you’ll be able to work and learn while using this environment after finishing the book. |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +For VSCode to work for this book, you’ll need to install a few extensions that enable working with Python and using Copilot, but one of the great things about VSCode is that it makes it easy to install those extensions. |
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