But where do I type all this stuff in?
To write code you will need a 'text editor' -- which is a bit of a misnomer because we'll be using it to write code. I recommend Visual Studio Code. Alternatively Sublime Text is also a good option. They both run on Mac and Windows. Download and install one from their respective websites.
Though we call them text editors, these are tools really specialised for writing code, not text, and they have many features built-in to make this easier. One important one is syntax highlighting, which colours different parts of your code to make it easier to read. The reason they are called text editors is that the files they produce are plain-text files, without any formatting -- fonts, margins, etc -- that you would get in something like Word.
Also known as the command line.
Open up the Finder, then go into Applications on the left. Find the Utilities folder -- the Terminal app is inside. You might want to drag it onto your Dock for quicker access.
Search for 'Windows Terminal' from the taskbar. For some tasks you will need to right-click it, then click 'run as administrator'. If you can't find it, install it from the Microsoft Store. However, you now have two options for how to proceed.
One option is to use the Windows Terminal as it is -- known as Command Prompt. This is not commonly used, and most tutorials you come across won't mention it -- so most of the specific commands you need to type are a bit different. So your first option, and the quickest, is just to learn those commands instead.
If you have Windows 10 or later, a better option -- though one that takes longer to set up -- is to install something called Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL. To do this make sure you have opened Windows Terminal as an administrator, then run:
$ wsl --install
This will start the installation process, which takes a while. You will need to restart your computer mid-way.
Once that has completed, open Windows Terminal, click the down-arrow to open the settings, then in the startup section change the default profile to the WSL option. Now, when you open the Windows Terminal it will use WSL.
The terminal is a text-based interface that lets you navigate through your files and folders (aka. directories) and run terminal-based tools.
The $ symbol indicates this is a terminal command -- you don't type that though. If you look at your terminal there is typically a $ at the start of each line.
$ pwd
Stands for 'print working directory'.
$ ls
Short for 'list'.
$ cd <directory name>
Stands for 'change directory'. The directory name you are moving to is case-sensitive, eg:
$ cd Desktop
To move to the parent directory of the one you are currently in use:
$ cd ..
You will often be able to auto-complete some terminal commands by pressing tab. Try it by typing cd, followed by a space, then tab. It will display all the directories you can navigate into from here.
Often commands will be given with flags, which enable extra options. These start with a hyphen followed by a single letter. For example, ls has the -l 'long' flag to print out extra details about each file:
$ ls -l
Multiple flags can be grouped together. So, to use the -l and the -a flags, you could type either ls -l -a or just ls -la for short. Flags can also be given in long format, starting with two hyphens, but these can't be grouped together.
One common way to keep your work organised do this is create a new directory in your home directory named Projects. Every time you start a new project or tutorial create a new directory inside here for that piece of work. Keep everything relevant to that project inside here, and not on the desktop or anywhere else.
Name your directory and files in lowercase and with hyphens instead of spaces. This makes it quicker to navigate to them in the terminal, as dealing with spaces can be fiddly.
You can also do this from the terminal. First, make sure you are inside your projects directory. Then run:
$ mkdir an-example
Which stands for 'make directory'.
For most things it is easiest to do this from the terminal:
The easiest way is to first install Homebrew, a tool that makes it easier to install other things. Follow the instructions on its website to get it set up. You then use it with the brew command. For example:
$ brew install ruby
If you are using the default Windows terminal without WSL and have a recent version of Windows you can try installing things with the winget command: For example:
$ winget install ruby
This won't work with older versions of Windows. There are further instructions here..
If you are using WSL you can install things with the apt command. For example:
$ apt install ruby
Different programming languages also come with similar tools for installing things written in that language. For example, Python comes with Pip, Node comes with NPM, and Ruby comes with Gem. Often the things we need can only be installed using that language-specific tool.