Setting Up Your Workshop

A carpenter's first project isn't a chair — it's setting up the bench. This lesson gets Python onto your machine and gives you just enough command-line skill to feel at home. It's the least glamorous lesson in the course and one of the highest-value ones: every professional you'll ever work with has this exact setup.

One reassurance before we start: the playground in these lessons keeps working regardless. If an install step fights you, keep learning here and circle back — don't let a version conflict end your programming career at lesson three.

Installing Python

Head to python.org/downloads — the big yellow button offers the right installer for your system.

Windows

• Run the installer, and check the box that says "Add python.exe to PATH" before clicking Install. This is the single most-missed step in all of computing; it's what lets you type python in a terminal and have Windows find it.
• Alternatively, the Microsoft Store "Python 3.14" package handles PATH automatically.

macOS

• Macs no longer ship with a usable Python — install from python.org, or if you use Homebrew: brew install python.
• The installed command is often python3 rather than python. Both spellings appear in tutorials; they're the same thing on a healthy setup.

Linux

• Most distributions include Python 3 already. If not: sudo apt install python3 (Debian/Ubuntu) or your distro's equivalent.

Verifying the install

Open a terminal (next section shows you how) and run:

python --version

→ You should see something like Python 3.14.2. If python isn't found, try python3 --version. If that fails on Windows, re-run the installer — the PATH box strikes again.

A gentle crash course in the terminal

The terminal (also: command line, console, shell) is a text conversation with your computer — you type a command, it answers. Programmers live here because text commands are precise, repeatable, and scriptable.

Opening one: Windows — search "Terminal" or "PowerShell". macOS — Spotlight, type "Terminal". Linux — you probably know already.

The starter kit — these five cover 80% of daily terminal use:

• pwd — print working directory: "where am I?"
• ls (dir on old-school Windows) — list the files here
• cd foldername — change into a folder; cd .. — go up one level
• mkdir projects — make a new folder
• python myfile.py — the one that matters: run a Python file

That's it for now. Precision matters — spaces and spelling count — but nothing you type in a terminal is dangerous unless you go looking for danger.

Choosing your editor

You can write Python in Notepad. You'll be much happier in an editor built for code:

• VS Code — free, the industry default, superb Python support. This is the course recommendation.
• PyCharm — a heavier, Python-only IDE with everything built in. The Community edition is free.
• Thonny — deliberately tiny and beginner-friendly; a lovely training-wheels option, quickly outgrown.

Configuring VS Code for Python

1. Install VS Code, open it, and go to Extensions (the blocks icon).
2. Install the Python extension (by Microsoft). It brings syntax highlighting, error squiggles, a run button, and autocompletion.
3. Open any folder (File → Open Folder), create a file ending in .py, and VS Code wakes up in Python mode.

The .py extension is how everything — the editor, the interpreter, other developers — knows a file contains Python.

Meeting Jupyter notebooks

One more habitat you'll encounter: Jupyter notebooks mix runnable code cells with text and charts in a single document. They dominate data science and machine learning, where exploring data step by step beats running whole programs. You don't need Jupyter yet — we'll pick it up in Part V — but when you see a file ending in .ipynb, that's what it is.

The playground blocks in this course share that one idea — code that runs right in the page — though unlike notebook cells, every Run here starts from a clean slate.