Learn to Use an IDE

0:00Welcome to the content on getting started with software development

0:03fundamentals and setting up your own development environment.

0:07Look, this is content that I'm particularly excited to talk about because

0:11software development was something that I got started with a little bit later

0:16in my technological career.

0:18I actually began as a hardware person focused on networking appliances, but

0:23software development became a huge part of my career starting around 2017 or so

0:29when I was forced to start automating massive large scale deployments of my

0:35network infrastructure.

0:37The long story short year is that even though it was something that I put off

0:42towards the latter part of my technical implementations, I found out that this

0:47was actually the most valuable thing I have ever added to my skill set was just

0:53understanding software development fundamentals.

0:56That led me down even bigger rabbit holes and architecting some of the most

1:00massive and enjoyable and automated full scale solutions I've worked on in my

1:05entire career.

1:07Now, here we are at the beginning of a software development fundamentals

1:10journey.

1:11And the biggest thing that I want to say here is yes, we could talk a lot about

1:16theory. We could talk about the history of software development.

1:20We could talk a lot about keywords. That's not really my style. I'm more of a

1:24let's jump in and get some wins under our belt. Let's start building things.

1:30Let's start seeing how does it actually work. What happens when I click this

1:33button or turn this knob or flip this switch. That's my style.

1:38And what I propose we do right out of the gate is make sure your environment is

1:43ready for software development. Let's install some applications. Let's learn

1:48how those applications work.

1:50Let's learn how to create some basic software and run it. That's what we're

1:55going to do in this skill. Then once we've got that under our belt nine we know

1:58our environment works, at least with Python.

2:02That'll make transitioning to other programming languages, which is a

2:06requirement for this course, a little bit easier because once you've done one,

2:11the rest of them are pretty similar.

2:13So without further ado, let's get started setting up your environment for

2:16software development. Let's go.

0:00So what is this? What are we looking at here on the screen right now?

0:04Don't focus on the code. Don't focus on the text that you see. Focus on the

0:09entire picture. Focus on the application that I'm looking at.

0:13This is called an interactive

0:15development environment or an IDE.

0:19And I think the key word right there is actually this "I", the interactive part

0:24. It is interactive.

0:26It's more than just a text editor.

0:28It's something that you can not only write text or code in like you see right

0:34here,

0:35but also interact with it. It will actually tell you things about your code.

0:40It can tell you when it's broken. It can tell you when some of these syntax or

0:45the

0:45stylization of the code is wrong. And it can even test your code or debug your

0:52code as we like to say.

0:53Now you're gonna get to know the ins and outs of IDE's quite a bit throughout

0:58this set of videos.

0:59Your first step is just to well get one.

1:02So how do you get an IDE? Well, check this out. If I flip over one page right

1:08here, I've Googled

1:09popular IDE's, even though I already know exactly which one we're gonna be

1:14working with. The thing is with IDE's is there's lots of them.

1:17Sometimes they're free. Sometimes they cost money.

1:21Some IDE's are really good for specific programming languages.

1:27In fact, right here is kind of one that I'm looking at for that example. PyCh

1:31arm.

1:31PyCharm is really good for the Python programming language.

1:36Some programming languages are a little bit more general purpose.

1:42For the most part, this list that you're looking at right here is all pretty

1:47specific to specific programming languages.

1:51IntelliJ for the most part has been used by Java developers, even though it

1:56adds some support for a couple other

1:58programming languages. PyCharm is for Python. Ruby mine is for, well, Ruby.

2:03Visual Studio right here. This is Visual Studio. Basically, the class version

2:09of it is for the dot

2:11net framework, which is heavily used by the C# programming language.

2:16You'll learn more about those key terms and what makes a framework in a

2:20programming languages later.

2:22Just trust me when we're talking about the applications for right now.

2:26Xcode is largely for Apple developers.

2:29And for paid solutions, a lot of software developers do like working with

2:34things like JetBrains.

2:36JetBrains does make a lot of IDE's. If you click on developer tools right here,

2:41you'll see a lot of the items that we just talked about are listed right here.

2:46But for most developers, a one size fits all solution that is modular, meaning

2:53we can add stuff to it, is Visual Studio code.

2:56This is free. This is general purpose.

2:59But we can add extensions or basically like plugins into it that hone in the

3:07ability to work with specific programming languages and do some really cool

3:11stuff with it.

3:11Visual Studio code is open source.

3:15And open source is something we're going to talk a little bit more about what

3:19that means and why it's important and why it's a big deal in the next video.

3:23For now, we're just going to leave it at one sentence.

3:26It means it can really run on anything.

3:29And again, I'll dwell on that what that really means a little bit more in the

3:34next video.

3:35But for now, this is the application that I'm going to be working with.

3:39And quite frankly, this is the application that I actually do my production

3:43software development in right now.

3:45It is free. It is extraordinarily powerful.

3:48And if it doesn't come out of the box with the functionality or the support

3:53that I want, I can add it with extensions.

3:56So what I'd encourage you to do right now is download and install Visual Studio

4:01code.

4:02You can see the various platforms that are supported right here, Mac OS,

4:06Windows and Linux.

4:07And it does work on Apple Silicon.

4:10So if you're working with the ARM CPUs, it'll absolutely work for that too.

4:15So go ahead and install that and then go ahead and open up Visual Studio code,

4:20which is where I am right here.

4:22I'll go ahead and close these files here and kind of show you some of the

4:25things that you can do.

4:26We're going to spend some time setting up Visual Studio code to work the way

4:31that you want it to go here under code, go to settings and take a moment to

4:36actually explore color themes.

4:39I know you're thinking, wait a minute, like this is a software development

4:42course.

4:42And we're talking about color themes.

4:43Yes, we are talking about color things because you know why you're going to be

4:48staring at this screen for a long time.

4:51And it needs to be in a color format that your eyes are comfortable with.

4:56You can even add new color themes by browsing additional color themes right

5:01here at the top.

5:02It'll search for color themes.

5:04You can actually load a huge list, although right now my loading failed.

5:08I think probably because I'm connected to a VPN right now.

5:10So again, I do highly recommend you actually take the time to explore your

5:16themes and pick a color theme that you can stick with.

5:19I know this is it seems silly, but it's actually something that I found has

5:23been a really important thing for me to stay focused in on what it is that I'm

5:28working with.

5:29OK, next thing that I want to talk about is just the layout of VS code right

5:34here.

5:34Now your layout is going to look a little bit different the first time you

5:38launch it.

5:39All of this stuff right here on the right hand side of my screen is actually

5:44going to be on the left hand side of your screen.

5:47I moved it to the right hand side of my screen on purpose.

5:51You might be thinking, why would I have done that?

5:53I'll show you just to flip it back for a second.

5:56This is probably more like what you're seeing by default.

6:00When I click this little gear down here by the bottom, I'll click command

6:04palette and I'll search for the word position.

6:07You see this toggle primary sidebar position.

6:11If I give it a click, it'll flip it over here to the right side.

6:14Now, why did I do that?

6:17It's kind of a subtle thing again.

6:19It's just about keeping my attention and keeping me focused in on working.

6:23Whenever I actually bring up a file, any file that I want to work with, I'll

6:27show you if I bring up just a, you know, a little script right here that I'm

6:30working with.

6:31If I do command B or control B on Windows machines, it collapses that screen.

6:39So I get a little more real estate on my screen to work with.

6:42When I have this stuff over here, this positioned window over here on the right

6:47hand side, it doesn't move my code.

6:50See, check us out.

6:52If I put it back, go to command palette, type in position, toggle the position

6:57bar over here.

6:59Now, when I do command B, see it shifts my code, it's a subtle thing, but it's

7:03another thing that's really, really important for me to be focused in on being

7:07efficient.

7:08So the ability to collapse without shifting my code is just another thing about

7:12setting up my environment in such a way that I can do a lot of software

7:18development over a long period of time and just make it a little bit more

7:21sustainable.

7:23Now, some other things that are going to be helpful to you to actually just

7:27understand how to navigate around VS code.

7:30One of the things VS code shows you is what programming language you're

7:35currently working on.

7:37It's small, it's subtle, but it's right here.

7:42See where it says move right there where my mouse is at the bottom?

7:46That's because I'm actually working with the move programming language right

7:50now.

7:50If I change this to something entirely different, like this markdown file, see,

7:55I changed to the markdown file and now it's pointed out that this is a markdown

8:00language right here.

8:01I can change it one more time to be something like a rust file.

8:06Let's just grab a rust file here.

8:09And there it is.

8:12There we go.

8:12There's a rust file.

8:13And you see now it shows that this is a rust file down there.

8:17So visual studio code can detect what programming language you're working on

8:22just by looking at the file extension.

8:24And importantly, it can also highlight the syntax and understand some of the

8:30things that are going on in that file by this detection.

8:35Sometimes though, it doesn't get the detection just right.

8:38And you can actually click on the language right here and choose all of these

8:44languages that it can support out of the box.

8:46Or maybe not out of the box.

8:48If you need to add support for certain types of programming languages or any

8:53additional functions, this is where VS code really shines.

8:57This is what makes it so popular.

8:58It's the ability to add basically plug ins into VS code on the fly that extends

9:06all of the things that it can do, that it can extend all of the support that it

9:10has.

9:11And that's what these little building blocks right here are.

9:14These represent.

9:14These are the extensions.

9:16If we give it a click right here, I'll collapse the extensions that I have

9:21installed and you can see some of the extensions that it recommends right out

9:25of the box.

9:26But you can search for anything that you want, like Python support search for

9:32Python.

9:33And you'll see a lot of Python extensions pop up for you to work with the

9:38official Microsoft supported Python language extension is probably the one that

9:44you want to go with.

9:46I go ahead and encourage you to click on this Python extension right now.

9:49And where you see right here, it says like disable for me, I would go ahead and

9:53click the install button for you.

9:55Go ahead and do it.

9:56You'll see in just one second, Python support has been dropped into your VS

10:01code application.

10:03That's all you had to do to turn this into a Python development environment.

10:08Feel free to explore other things.

10:11Search for something like go.

10:13The go programming language is very popular this day and age.

10:17So you see this one right here, go team at Google, give that one a click,

10:22install it too.

10:23Now VS code supports go.

10:25You can do the same thing for rust, another programming language that I highly

10:30recommend getting familiar with.

10:32I'm personally using the rust analyzer extension right here.

10:38In my own environment, now there's a lot more extensions that I'll probably

10:42introduce you to when the time comes.

10:44This is all about just getting familiar with the tool, getting familiar with VS

10:49code.

10:49The final thing that I want you to see is the terminal itself.

10:53This is where you can actually run and debug your code.

10:57All you have to do is go to the top window of your screen and click new

11:01terminal.

11:02And it'll pop up a command line terminal right here in the application.

11:07You don't have to jump between applications now, leaving your text editor to go

11:12to a terminal to run a script and see what it does.

11:15Now you can look at it all in one place, thus proving that this really is

11:20interactive.

11:21Now I promise you're going to see so much more of this application, the ins and

11:25outs of what it can do, even in this skill.

11:28So for now, we just wanted to get VS code and start getting familiar with just

11:33the landscape of it.

11:35Take some time to customize it and kind of set it up to work the way that you

11:39would like it to.

11:40Basically, pick a good color theme and choose if you want this window to be

11:45collapsible on the right hand side or the left hand side.

11:48Some of the other things that these icons mean, don't worry.

11:51We're going to explore them as we progress.

11:53But for now, this has been getting your first application installed, the IVE VS

11:59code.

0:00Now before we dig into this anymore, I wanted to take a moment to elaborate on

0:04what open

0:05source

0:07software

0:09Really means this is very frequently

0:12abbreviated OSS in the software world and if you ever find yourself on this

0:17website

0:18github.com

0:20It's very likely that you're going to be taking a look at open source software

0:25now nothing

0:26There's always these gotchas. There's always these well, maybe not maybe this

0:30you know

0:30Not open to the public but the idea the core ethos of github is a place where

0:37people

0:37Can share their work and share their software out in the open and

0:43Anyone can come along make a copy of that and contribute to it

0:49They could add their own fixes to problems or improvements or features into it

0:54And that's exactly what VS code is right here

0:58You are looking at the core software the actual software that was written that

1:03makes

1:04VS code work and run on your computer

1:07This is a big mindset shift from even I'm gonna say like you know ten years ago

1:14Open source software was less common it was starting to become more common

1:20It was starting to become more of the thing around I'm gonna say 2015 or so

1:25I mean just thinking I'm just thinking personally

1:29You know in my experience working with computers over a really long time

1:33There was you know I started with Windows 95 and it was really Windows 95

1:39all the way through you probably

1:42Windows 8 is where I want to say

1:47When applications were designed to run on Windows they were only

1:52Designed to run on Windows it was uncommon to find an application that ran on

1:58both windows and

2:00a

2:02OS X which is now Mac OS

2:04like multiple operating systems

2:06Windows had their own programming languages

2:10primarily

2:13see sharp was a big one and

2:16C-sharp really belonged to a bigger family of how software was designed and

2:21laid out called the dot net framework

2:25The dot net framework was just that it was a framework

2:28It was basically a scaffolding an architecture and you could drop C-sharp code

2:34into it to make your application work

2:36but for the most part the dot net framework only worked on Windows computers

2:40and

2:42Importantly the dot net framework itself and the C-sharp language were closed

2:48source

2:49So you could learn how to write code in C-sharp and you could write

2:55Applications that worked on Windows, but you couldn't actually contribute to C-

3:00sharp at the same time

3:02So around I'm gonna say like I'm gonna stick to 2014 about 10 years ago at the

3:07time of this recording around 2014

3:10There became this big shift in developers where they didn't want to write

3:15programs

3:16that only ran on one operating system anymore in

3:20Particular they didn't like it when the operating systems also had to be paid

3:25for and licensed

3:26They if they were writing an application they wanted that application to be

3:31able to run anywhere

3:32Which means the language that it was written in as well as the operating system

3:40That it runs on needed to be some form of

3:43free

3:45So they just became a huge cultural movement in software development

3:49Where developers started shifting away from things like the dot net framework

3:54I'm gonna say and I don't want to say like people stop developing for Windows

3:58obviously Windows is still an absolutely massive

4:00humongous operating system and applications are written for it to this day they

4:05just

4:06Forced the hand more or less for Microsoft to transition away from closed

4:12sourced application

4:13Programming to where if a developer wrote a program one time it should be able

4:19to run anywhere

4:20so developers started writing in programming languages like Java or

4:25Python and the big win for these is these programming languages can run

4:32everywhere and

4:34developers also fell in love around this time with

4:37Linux based operating systems because

4:40Linux based operating systems are usually small and they're almost always free

4:46So from their point of view a language that can run anywhere and an operating

4:51system that's free

4:53There's no barrier to entry to use their application

4:55So fast forward to today

4:592024

5:01What happened around this time that made Windows forced that you know had

5:07Windows changed their position on open source software

5:10Well, they recognize this advent was happening right here

5:14that developers themselves were shifting away from the dot net framework and

5:19the C-sharp programming language because that would

5:21restrict their application to only being able to work on Windows which was also

5:27a paid operating system and

5:29In a truly global environment where not everybody has a laptop and can afford

5:34to pay for Windows or things like that

5:36Forcing this hand was actually a barrier to entry for software developers

5:41So recognizing that that's the case

5:44Windows actually started to transition from dot net framework to dot net core

5:50Which is now an open source software version of dot net and today that is now

5:56transitioned to just

5:59dot net so it went from

6:01dot net

6:02framework to dot net core to now dot net and

6:06C-sharp is now open source I

6:10can now run C-sharp written

6:12applications directly on my Mac OS operating system and along with that this

6:19whole advent of

6:20creating

6:22programming languages and applications that software developers like

6:26The ultimate tool VS code came out of that too

6:30As you've seen in the previous video VS code is now

6:33basically a de facto standard for software developers to work with because of

6:38its ability to be

6:39extensible

6:41Anyone can now see exactly where VS code comes from and because they have this

6:47ability they can now build their own

6:50extensions like we explored in the last video and add that extension

6:56to a

6:58marketplace

6:59Where anyone can come along pick the extension and choose to install it

7:03directly into VS code that might have been a subtle thing that

7:06You might have missed but if I flip back here and jump over to my extensions

7:10real quick and just grab an extension like this one

7:13We can actually see that this is a marketplace the rust extension pack what

7:18version it's on who created it

7:21How many times it's been downloaded and importantly ratings from the public of

7:26what they think about it

7:28Then you can also look at what does this actually do it can show you little

7:33snippets like it

7:34What what is this supposed to do or give you links to understand what it does?

7:38Just picking on another one like Azure tools that actually allows you to work

7:43with cloud compute something

7:44We'll talk more about later

7:45You can actually see that this Azure tools extension is an extension pack

7:51It comes with a bunch of additional extensions that you can install right here

7:56And if you scroll down and explore and let me get this terminal out of the way

8:00You can actually show you screenshots of what each of these extensions do and

8:04how you can work with them

8:05Importantly you can see who published this how many times it's been installed

8:10and again ratings for what they think of this extension so far

8:14So all of that is to say is that when you start working with software in

8:19general you

8:20Maybe coming from this mindset if you are at least have been around you know

8:25technology as long as I have for a long time

8:27applications could only work on one operating system and you know what maybe

8:33people still are making

8:34Applications that only work on one operating system you see that very

8:38frequently when you open up something like the Apple App Store

8:41It's very likely that that's only going to work on Apple

8:44But for the most part as a software developer who's getting started

8:48Freshen the game you're going to want to work with open source as much as

8:54possible

8:55Programming languages that are supported everywhere and that's why in the next

9:00video we're going to get started with

9:02Python

9:03So let's pick that up in the next video

0:00So with our understanding of using open source software to begin learning some

0:05basic software development fundamentals,

0:07we're going to start by talking about one of the most popular first programming

0:11languages in the world.

0:13And that's Python.

0:15Python is very, very, very, very popular because it is, in my opinion, the most

0:23human readable programming language.

0:27As far as programming languages go, this is the one that reads the most like an

0:32organic human sentence.

0:34Other programming languages that are still really popular, like JavaScript,

0:39have a lot of special characters in it.

0:42You'll see the braces symbol a lot.

0:45You'll see semicolons a lot.

0:48These are symbols that don't show up a lot in human sentences.

0:52Whereas Python really is the most human readable programming language, which

0:57makes it a natural first step for people entering the programming language

1:02world.

1:03Beyond that, Python is very general purpose.

1:10And when I say general purpose, I really mean that you can kind of do a lot of

1:15different things with one single programming language.

1:19For instance, you might want to make websites and do web development.

1:24You can do that in Python.

1:26You might want to get into AI or machine learning in the same kind of vein.

1:33You have data processing and you can do that with Python.

1:39You might just be looking to automate monotonous tasks.

1:42One of the most popular programming and software development fundamental books

1:47ever written is called automate the boring stuff with Python.

1:50And it is actually the book that taught me Python.

1:54Because I wanted to do exactly what the name implied, automate boring monoton

1:58ous work.

1:59In particular, in my case, it was working with Excel files.

2:04I did not fully understand just the breadth of how much stuff you could

2:08actually do with Python.

2:10There was, but because it's such a popular programming language, it is also

2:15just like VS code.

2:18Extensible.

2:21Meaning we can take Python out of the box.

2:24And if it doesn't do exactly what we wanted to do out of the shelf, someone has

2:29likely built a drop in plugin.

2:31Something will explore towards the end of this skill and add functionality to

2:35it.

2:36We can extend its capabilities.

2:39So how do you get Python?

2:41Well, if you're working on a Macbook or a Mac OS machine or a Linux machine,

2:46you already have it.

2:47If you open up a terminal, you can simply type Python 3.

2:51That's all one word like this and press enter.

2:54And you see it launches the Python 3 interpreter.

2:59This prompt with the three dashes right here is how you know you're on the

3:03Python interpreter.

3:05Now, why is it called an interpreter?

3:07Well, because when we write Python code, it actually reads like a human

3:12language, but computers don't actually process human language.

3:16Computers process bits ones and zero zeros and ones like so.

3:24So what the Python interpreter does is it literally interprets our human

3:31readable language on the fly and translates it into what is known as machine

3:40code or byte code.

3:42Those are synonyms.

3:45So this terminal right here is really waiting for us to type in Python syntax

3:51or Python commands so that it can interpret it on the fly into byte code.

3:57Check this out.

3:58If you want to try it, I'll try.

4:00And if you if you have this already loaded up, don't worry if you're on Windows

4:03, we're going to show you what to do next.

4:04You can do print open parentheses, open double quotes.

4:10Hello world.

4:12Close double quotes close parentheses by type enter right here.

4:17It returns the word hello world that I typed right here back to me.

4:21The interpreter interpreted the Python command of print and did the actual

4:27processing right there.

4:29So now what I want to leave the Python interpreter, I'll type exit, open and

4:33close parentheses, and it returns to be back to my terminal.

4:37So this is just understanding that Mac OS and Linux machines come with the

4:41Python interpreter by default. Windows machines, however, don't.

4:46You still have to go out and get Python and Python can actually be a big

4:50installation for anyone working with Windows machines.

4:55So we'll go to Python.org to bring this up.

4:59And to download and install it, I'm going to hover over downloads and you see

5:03Python 3.12.3 right here.

5:06Your version may look different because of the time whenever you recorded this,

5:10they may come out with new versions later.

5:12We'll go ahead and click on Python 3.12.3 and it downloads the installer and

5:17then I'll open the installer to actually launch the installation.

5:21Now, here's what I recommend you do because right now what it wants to do is it

5:25wants to install this in my local profile environment.

5:29What I actually recommend you do is you install this in a path where any user

5:34can get to it.

5:35So let's do customize installation right here.

5:39We'll leave all of these things default.

5:41We're going to set this true to for all users though, right there.

5:45And this will require admin privileges to launch this, but we do want all users

5:50to be able to run our Python scripts.

5:53We'll click next and we're going to change the installation location here.

5:58I'm going to click browse and I'm going to move to my C drive.

6:02So let's go to this PC.

6:04We'll go to the C drive.

6:06I'll make a new folder right here and I'll call it pi 3.12.3 for Python version

6:133.12.3.

6:14And I'll kind of click on it.

6:16I've got it selected and I'll click OK.

6:19So that's where I want to install it.

6:21Let's go ahead and make sure we set install Python 3.12 for all users and add

6:25Python to environment variables as well.

6:29We'll click install and that should kick off the installation.

6:33It's really important that you don't miss any of those steps or those options.

6:37I just want to stress that.

6:39The installation finishes after one moment. There's one final thing that you

6:44can do here.

6:44It shows disable path length limit.

6:46It says this changes your machine to allow programs like Python to bypass the

6:51260 character max path limitation.

6:55Go ahead and do that just in case it's something that you expect to need in

6:58case you do need to have a longer path character limit name when specifying

7:05paths to specific resources.

7:07Now, what can we do?

7:09Let's bring up the command prompt here.

7:11I'll type CMD.

7:12And what I'm going to do is I'm going to run this as administrator.

7:16The big reason I want to run this as administrator is because the Python

7:20installation just changed the path environment variable running it as

7:25administrator will effectively refresh the cache of what it has in the Python

7:31environment variable.

7:33So with the command prompt launch here, I can now type Python 3.

7:37Sure enough, it brings me into the interpreter and I can close that out.

7:41Look, just one other thing I want to point out.

7:43You don't have to go through that big installation as well.

7:46It's now baked into the Microsoft Store.

7:48So if you have access to the Microsoft Store because most enterprises do shut

7:53down access to the Microsoft Store, but if you're just working on your local

7:58computer at home and you can access it, search for Python 3 and download the

8:02Microsoft Store.

8:02And download, you know, whichever version of Python 3 you want, 3.12 is the

8:06most recent version.

8:08It'll do effectively the same thing.

8:11So this is how you go about getting Python 3.

8:15At this point with Python 3 installed and VS code set up, you're ready to work.

0:00So now we're going to walk through is actually setting up a workspace and

0:04creating our first Python script and running our first Python script from VS

0:09code.

0:10Here's what I want you to do. I want you to bring up a terminal or file

0:14explorer, whichever operating system you're working on.

0:17If you're working on Windows, bring up file explorer. If you're working on Mac

0:21OS or Linux, you can bring up terminal.

0:23Either way is really easy. So from whatever folder you want to begin with,

0:28maybe it's your C drive, in my case, in Mac OS, it's my home folder.

0:33What I want you to do is I want you to make a folder, let's call it make their

0:37and call it like work demos, something like that.

0:41You can just right click, do new folder and make a folder called make them work

0:45demos.

0:46I'll press enter and then I'm going to change into work demos.

0:50Then from here, I'm going to make another folder, call it first demo like so.

0:58I'll press enter and I'll change into first demo. At this point, you can stop.

1:03If you've created these two folders, you're good to go. You can close your

1:07terminal. You can close your file explorer.

1:10We can pick up the rest and do the rest from our ID or interactive development

1:15environment, in this case, VS code.

1:18I'm going to launch VS code, fresh new launch. In my folder section over here,

1:24you know where my little extensions are, you see it looks a little bit

1:28different.

1:29That's because the last time I opened it up, you saw all of those extra buttons

1:33, because I had files already open.

1:36When those files were already open, it triggered some extensions to pop up.

1:41In fact, as I was sitting here, they just started to pop up on their own as

1:45they just got loaded into the program.

1:48At the very top here, we see our file and folder explorer. What I want you to

1:51do is I want you to click on open folder.

1:54I want you to make your way to that folder. I'll go to work demos and then

1:59first demo.

2:00Then with first demo clicked right here, I'm just going to click open.

2:05Now, over here, I'm looking at the contents of first demo. I'll say yes, I

2:08trust the authors, because I am the authors.

2:11Right here, I'm looking at the contents of first demo.

2:14I can right click in here and choose to create a new file. We're going to call

2:19this my demo.py.

2:24Python scripts have the file extension.py or py.

2:30Immediately, I notice down here that VS Code interprets this as a Python file.

2:36I now have my demo.py opened right here on my screen.

2:41I'm free to begin typing effectively whatever Python code I want.

2:47We can do the same thing we already did with print.

2:50I'll do open and close parentheses. I'll do double quotes. I'll say hello world

2:55.

2:56I see the little white dot right here, kind of where my mouse is, a little bit

3:00to the left of my mouse.

3:02That means that I haven't saved this file. That means whatever I've typed here

3:07hasn't actually been committed to disk right now.

3:10So as far as the disk knows, it's just an empty text file. But if I do command

3:15S or control S, I save the file and then it goes away.

3:20I can then go onto a new line and start typing some more stuff. We can type

3:26print.

3:28How are you today?

3:32If I do command S one more time, it saves it. That's fantastic.

3:37So what the print statement does, this is important. It feels kind of silly

3:41right now.

3:42But what the print statement does is it takes anything input, any value that we

3:48give it, and it retipes it in the terminal.

3:53You might be thinking to yourself, well, what good is that? Why do I care about

3:58that?

3:59What developers actually end up using this for is they'll do something really,

4:04really, really complex in code. They'll take a bit of data in and then they'll

4:12change it as this code progresses.

4:15And as it goes from line one to line two to line three to line four, they might

4:21forget how it gets changed along the way. And what they want to do is they want

4:27to put print statements in the middle of their code as it's progressing along

4:32the way to see how everything is changing.

4:36So print is actually a really useful debugging tool, where as data is coming in

4:41, and we want to see what is the application doing with this data at each step

4:45along the way, we actually use print to print out what it's doing along the way

4:51.

4:52Let's tinker with that a little bit, shall we? Let's actually say, I want to

5:08start out by holding just the number zero somewhere. What I might do is I might

5:09actually create something called starter as just the name of some item that we

5:10want to save.

5:13Then what I might do is I might say starter is going to be changed to be

5:19starter plus one.

5:21Then I might say starter becomes starter plus 400,000, nine, 410,000 nine

5:30hundred and seven let's just make something up like that.

5:34Now, at what point, what is starter at this point right here, that becomes the

5:41question.

5:42So you can see, we started out by creating what's known as a variable. This is

5:47just something that we just give it an arbitrary name any name we want to give

5:51it, and we store data inside of it.

5:55So we changed the value of starter to be whatever starter was plus one. Then we

6:01took whatever that was and added 410,000, nine hundred seven. So I could

6:06quickly do some math and see that's 410,000, nine hundred eight.

6:09But if you're not paying close attention, you might just want to be like, Hey,

6:13what is starter at this point in my code and that's what print does.

6:18Now the question is, how did I have this Python script, how do I actually

6:23execute it, how do I run it. There's a couple different ways. We can go back to

6:27our terminal.

6:29We can go into our working demos directory and then our first demo. If I type

6:33LS I see here's my demo.py and I can run the script with Python three, we say

6:39Python three, and then just the name of the script.

6:44And boom, there we go. That's the first way to run your script. You can do it

6:48directly from the terminal. This is usually done when we're done working with

6:53it. This is usually done when we're like, Okay, the script is done.

6:57I don't need to edit it anymore. I don't need to look at the code anymore. I

6:59just want to run it. This is when we usually go to the terminal to do it. If we

7:04're still in the middle of debugging and working with it.

7:08This is when I might still fire up my terminal right here. I could do the exact

7:12same thing from the seat when I do terminal right here. It automatically

7:17launches me into the folder that I had open in my explorer. So if I type LS I

7:21could do the exact same thing.

7:23I can say Python three, my demo.py and it gives me the same results. I could

7:28also go here to run and say start debugging. And it looks like my Python

7:34extension is disabled. Let's go ahead and enable that real quick.

7:39I'll go into extensions with the little blocks. I'll click the dot dot dot and

7:44I'll say enable all extensions.

7:47Now that that's enabled, I should be able to go to run and start debugging. It

7:52says use the Python debugger, which is what I want to do. I'll click that. It's

7:56a Python file. I'll click that. And right here. Look, see, it's running it.

8:01There we go.

8:02So this is typically how we end up working with software. Whenever we start

8:06actually writing and interacting with software, and this is how we're going to

8:10go about running Python scripts. Now in the next video, we're going to really

8:15ratchet this skill up a notch when we start adding extensions and actually

8:20watching it work on the fly.

8:22So until then, now we've actually got a workspace set up where we can see how

8:27to add files. We can see what it's like to write some code into a script, and

8:32then what it's like to execute a script from within an IDE, as well as just to

8:37stand alone terminal.

0:00So in the last video we started to actually explore how to work with Python

0:04scripts, run Python scripts, and develop Python scripts.

0:07But this isn't really useful, is it? Just being able to print arbitrary text

0:12and arbitrary math out to the terminal isn't that great.

0:17Let's start thinking a little bigger. Let's think for a second about what we

0:21might want our software to actually do.

0:23A very common thing that software does is log.

0:28Log data.

0:30Log information.

0:32Now in order to implement an actual logging ability, it's going to require a

0:38lot of steps, a lot of understanding of programming languages and how Python

0:43works.

0:43Going to start out with something really, really basic though.

0:47A common concept that's implemented in just about every piece of software today

0:52.

0:52And that's logging and writing data to a file.

0:55Very frequently, what we do when we write data to a file is as events or things

1:03are happening inside of our application.

1:06Our application is at the same time writing this to a file.

1:12I receive this data. Here's the data.

1:15I process the data in this way. I changed this thing. I made this decision.

1:22It's basically an audit trail of everything the application is done.

1:27Now it's up to you, the software developer, to figure out what it is that you

1:32want to write to this file in the first place.

1:35Maybe you want to write every single tiny little thing down.

1:39Or maybe you only want to know what happened when something went wrong. That's

1:44up to you.

1:44But the thing is, is these log files get big, really, really fast.

1:51So one of the common things that we do is when we write data to a log file,

1:55we actually end up writing them to a bunch of different files.

2:01One of the more common ways that we do this is every day, we create a new file.

2:09So I could look at the events that happened on day one, the events that

2:14happened on day two,

2:15and the events that happened on day three.

2:17And after so many days of past, I may go back and say,

2:22"Okay, I don't care about day one events anymore, and I'll just delete that

2:25file to free up that space."

2:27So far so good understanding that we have what we call log rotation,

2:35a big software development concept you're learning right off the bat.

2:39We write events to a file, and then whenever a new day starts, we'll write

2:44those events to a different file.

2:46And after so many days of past, we'll delete the stale files.

2:51Well, one of the things that we may want to do is we may want to create this

2:57file in our code.

2:59And we may want to use today's date as the name of the file.

3:06It could be something like 2024411.txt is the name of the file.

3:16So if I'm thinking about a file structure, I'll have something like my

3:22application.

3:25And then in that, I'll have a folder called logs.

3:29And then in that, I'll see this file.

3:31And then tomorrow, it'll be 2024412.txt, and so on and so on and so on.

3:40So our first mission is going to be how do we dynamically create this file?

3:46Well, the big challenge that we have is we have to dynamically get today's date

3:51.

3:51And Python can't do that out of the box, believe it or not.

3:56We have to import what we call a module, or basically helper code, or basically

4:02a plugin

4:03into our Python script that has the ability to do it.

4:07Here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a new file, and I'll call it

4:11mylogger.py.

4:14See, there's no Python code that I can write this very second that tells me

4:19what today

4:20it is.

4:21What is today's date?

4:23Instead, I have to actually import that ability into my Python script.

4:29And we do that by saying import date time.

4:35Date time is the module.

4:37It is the thing in Python that has the functionality to work with the operating

4:44system and understanding

4:46this computer's date and time.

4:50The reason why we don't have this by default is if I were to, let's pretend

4:55this script

4:56have the ability to work with date and time by default.

4:59Under the hood, that would actually consume more memory from my computer just

5:06to load

5:07all of those processes and background checkers and all of those things that

5:11make that work.

5:12It would consume all of those background resources needed to get date and time.

5:17My script here doesn't need date and time.

5:20See, there's no call to date and time here at any point in this code.

5:25So there's no reason to eat up that overhead on my computer.

5:29But my longer script, I am for sure going to need today's date and time.

5:35So I'm okay importing that functionality.

5:38It's very lightweight.

5:39It's not going to slow my computer down, but we just don't want to import

5:43unnecessary

5:44packages, unnecessary libraries, unnecessary modules into our code if we don't

5:51need to.

5:52So in this case, I do need to get today's date and time.

5:55So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to say, let's get today's date

6:00and store

6:00it in a variable.

6:02So I'll create a variable called today's date.

6:04It's today underscore date.

6:07And I'll say using that date, time module.

6:13I want to find a date.

6:15Specifically, I want to know today's date.

6:20It's kind of a weird syntax the first time you see it.

6:23We haven't talked about classes or methods yet.

6:25We will.

6:26What this structure actually means will make more sense as we progress along.

6:31But just for now, I want you to focus in on the key takeaway here.

6:36In order to get additional functionality out of our Python code, we have to

6:41import this

6:42particular package called date time.

6:46So now at this point, today's date is stored right here in this variable called

6:52today date.

6:54How can I check to make sure it's the correct today's date?

6:58Of course, we can use print.

7:00So I'll say print today date.

7:03Now down here in my terminal, I can say Python three, my logger.py.

7:09And sure enough, there is today's date 2024, 411.

7:14But let's say, hmm, I'm not so sure about that format.

7:18Even if year, month, day, maybe I want the more, you know, I guess the more

7:23Americanized

7:24way of doing it, we could do month, day, year.

7:28How can I readjust that?

7:29Well, we can actually reformat the date format that comes back to us using a

7:35specific method.

7:37That's what this is called.

7:39So after we get today by saying today, I'll tack on one more thing that I

7:45wanted to do.

7:46I'll say dot S T R. That's string.

7:51That's what that's short for.

7:53F, that's format, time, then you can kind of see the helper text that my

7:59computer is

8:00getting me right here.

8:01It says if you want your month, day, use percent year percent M percent D. In

8:08my case, I wanted

8:09month, day, year.

8:11So I'll say open parentheses, double quotes percent M, hyphen percent D for hyp

8:19hen percent

8:21capital Y.

8:22It's important that that's capital.

8:24And then take a look at this.

8:26So in this case, I'm now using the date time module to get a date, specifically

8:31today's

8:32date.

8:33And then I'm reformatting the string to be month, day, year.

8:40When I print this, we'll just rerun the command right here.

8:44Now I've got month, day, year.

8:47So at this point, this is where we're going to pause in this part of the

8:50journey.

8:50I know it's kind of like, well, we didn't actually write the file.

8:54The big thing that I wanted you to understand was really about importing

8:58packages that scripts

9:00by default can't do absolutely everything under the sun.

9:05Lots of times we have to go out and get packages and add that functionality to

9:10our script by

9:11importing those packages.

9:14But once I imported the date time package, I could then dynamically figure out

9:19things

9:19like today's date and then even reformat the structure of today's date.

9:24Now that I have today's date, I can create a file with today's date in the name

9:29of it.

9:31The reason why this is a big deal is because every programming language just

9:36about in existence

9:38has this construct to it that by default, it can't do everything under the sun.

9:44You have to add functionality to it.

9:47And it's almost always the very first thing that you declare at the top of your

9:52script.

9:52I'm adding these functions, these resources into my script and into my code so

9:59that I

9:59can use them just a few lines down.

10:03So whether it's JavaScript, Python, Go, Rust, Java, C#, it doesn't matter.

10:10They all start with some type of import or using, use, add, whatever the

10:19statement is,

10:21they're adding functionality to their code.

10:24And now you've kind of seen it firsthand in action using a Python script.

10:29So you've come a long way in this journey.

10:32You started from nothing.

10:34Now you've actually got a full blown development environment with Python code

10:39being imported

10:40and being run locally in the IDE.

10:43I hope this has been informative for you and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00So your mission was to create a new file with NVS code and then basically do

0:07whatever you

0:07want to print anything you want to do it but importantly make sure you're

0:11printing out

0:12the date time somewhere using the date time module to get today's date.

0:17Now I'll show you one little additional tip that could make this a little fun

0:21as part of

0:22it.

0:23Let's start by creating a new file.

0:24We'll call this challenge.py.

0:28Like so of course I'm going to import date time into it and then I'm going to

0:33get today's

0:34date and that of course comes from date time, date today.

0:40Now one of the cool things that you can do is you can actually do kind of what

0:44it's

0:44showing you right here how to concatenate string together.

0:48What does that mean?

0:49Concatenate means combine effectively and string is just a string of text

0:56characters.

0:57We haven't talked about primitive data types yet.

1:00We're going to in the next set of videos but one of the very first things I'm

1:03going to

1:03give you a preview into is that there is the concept that text in programming

1:08languages

1:09are very frequently referred to as string and we can combine two strings

1:15together with

1:17concatenation.

1:18Now Python has like 20 different ways to do it.

1:22The later versions of Python use something called string formatting or string

1:28interpolation.

1:29So check this out.

1:30What I can do is I can type print and then instead of typing quotes like you

1:35see here

1:35on the screen what I'm actually going to do is I'm just going to type a lower

1:39case f.

1:40Now what the lowercase f tells Python to do is it's basically saying I'm about

1:46to give

1:46you a bunch of string but in the middle of it we're actually going to insert

1:53Python variables

1:54or Python codes that you need to interpolate into string.

1:59Watch how this works.

2:00This will make a lot more sense when you see it.

2:02We'll just say double quotes and we'll say today is and then I'll say double

2:07braces

2:08and you see this today date variable right here.

2:11I'll put that right here like this.

2:17So take a moment to digest what this is doing.

2:19This is going to print today is and then it's going to print out the contents

2:26of that variable

2:28as part of this big whole string.

2:31This is what that f does right there.

2:35That f says we can actually use these braces to drop in Python code Python

2:43variables and

2:45you'll be able to pull the string out of it that you need.

2:49So now when I say Python three challenge.py look at that.

2:55See today is and the full thing right there.

3:00This is really just to get you acclimated to working with VS code.

3:04This really wasn't about the code at this point.

3:06It was more just about creating files, interactively editing those files and

3:11then running those

3:12files all within one application.

3:15And now we've done that.

3:16I hope this has been informative for you and I'd like to thank you for viewing.