Text Editors

Introduction

Text editor is the most used tool by developers. Having a good text editor can help you a lot with writing code and spotting mistakes.

Lesson Overview

In this lesson we will cover:

• What code editors are
• Why are they so helpful
• Installation of Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

Can I use Microsof Word?

Microsoft Word and similar tools excell when we need to write a book or a paper and we call these rich text editors. Documents created with these rich text editors has more data then just text which makes them unsuitable for coding projects. In software development we use plain text editors like VSCode, Sublime, Notepad++ and varius others. They dont save any additional information besides text which is what we need to run our program.

Code Editors

Think of code editors as specialized plain text editors designed to write code. They are highly customizable and will make your life a lot easyer then working on your projects.

There are many code editors out there, but we reccomend Visual Studio Code (VSCode).

Visual Studio Code (or just VSCode) is a very good free code editor. It has excellent plugin support and supports almost any programming language.

Assigment

1. Install VSCode for your operating system:
   • Linux
   • MacOS
   • WSL2
2. Familiarize yourself with VSCode as this allows you to save time and become more productive. Visit Get Started with VSCode (skip the Github Copilot section - see below)

Turn off AI features

In VSCode AI features are enabled by default. As a beginner you dont want to use AI to generate the code for you as your goal here is to learn.

To disable AI features in VSCode go to settings (File > Preferences > Settings), search for "Disable AI Features" and check the box under the same name.

What's Next

Now that we have set up development environment and set up VSCode, its time to learn about command line. Essential tool in becoming a better and more productive developer.