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Helpful tools for the Introduction to Practical Programming

While I grew up in the era of dial-up and taking tests via pen and paper, many tools now exist that help to make programming easier. The purpose of this article is to give a list of a few that are quite helpful at the time of this writing, and though we will not cover all of them in detail just yet having them installed will make it easier to follow along.

A Computer

It is preferable that you have your own computer that you are able to install programs onto. If you do not, you will instead want to use an online alternative such as Code Pen, CodeSandbox, StackBlitz, or JS Fiddle. These sites will require independent learning as they are not covered initially.

Programs Installed

For Code Editing

We will be using Visual Studio Code as a code editor and explorer, as it is able to run on any machine, has a lot of useful plugins, and is what I use myself. Download a stable version here and install it to get started.

For Code Versioning and Backup

We will be utilizing Git in order to version our code, and GitHub as a free spot to keep it backed up to. While there is much more that these can be used for, we will start with these abilities at this point in time. This is something good to be in the habit of early on, so that you do not lose work. Please download and install git and sign up for github prior to starting this series.

Browser for Viewing

For this series I am using Google Chrome myself, as their developer tools are some that I enjoy. As such screenshots, key combo's, and examples may come from it. Several browsers have a fairly similar developer experience, but there are different quirks.

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Tags: Practical Programming, Tools

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