Introduction

What to expect from these notes

These are intended to be introductory notes to installing Python, Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code (VSC) and are to be used as part of my academic courses.

I want to provide just enough information for someone to get started. Given the rate of change in technology, I cannot write definitive notes, the chances are, the UI will have changed by the time you use these notes and security may have as well.

The information here is generally available on the internet although I assert copyright.

These notes were specifically written as an introduction for students who will be studying scripting-related courses. I have focused on the most common functionality only.

I do not assume pre-existing knowledge, although you should know how to work at the command prompt and use an editor.

In this document, there are several key terms. These will be underlined. You may need to look up these terms to get a full understanding of them.

Commands are generally shown in bold.

If you have a favorite editor and you are already a programmer, go ahead and use that. The simplest editor you can use is Notepad ++ with a Python plugin. A slightly more sophisticated solution is to use Visual Studio Code (VSC). This has become very popular and works across platforms.

For professional projects, I use PyCharm, I do not recommend using this now. Look at it in your free time, after the module is complete.

In these notes:

I will assume your Windows home directory is

C:\Users\username\OneDrive - Atlantic TU\IaC\Week1

I will assume your Linux home directory is

/home/username

If you have a different path in either OS, adapt!

Copyright

The content of these notes are (c) John ORaw 2023.

I have tried to acknowledge and cite sources, if you think I have missed crediting someone else's work, please contact me at [e-mail]