I don’t know how to go about writing code on my own laptop. From google searching for a couple hours or so I came across something that said I need a thing called a text editor? And also, that since I’m using windows I should get something like Git Bash and that I need to set up a path or something. Seriously I think this is a really obvious step that should be explained to us while we’re doing the course so that we could be programming on our own as were taught and that were not just thrown in at the deep end.
If any of you have read this to the end and don’t think I’m an idiot, do you have any tips? This is the only computer stuff I’ve gotten into and I’ve been really disheartened by my inability to do anything after finishing the course. Any help would be massively appreciated, thanks.
Next time, please do a simple Google Search before asking.
Here’s what Google says:
An Internet hosting service is a service that runs Internet servers, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content to the Internet. There are various levels of service and various kinds of services offered. A common kind of hosting is web hosting.
If you are coding with HTML, CSS, Javascript for example you don’t need a server, so you can use any editor, it’s a choice of preference, but if you are writing out PHP you will need a server…
Some editors:
NotePad++
Sublime text
You will need to buy hosting if you want to make your site live
Yeah I know, sorry about that, I’m just feeling a little over my head. So what do I actually have to download to my laptop so that I can write code like I was on the codecademy courses?
@ste4phen Git and a domain name and hosting are all stuff that should come later on, although they’re important once you’re ready to actually put a website out on the internet.
Which courses have you taken so far?
If you’ve done the HTML & CSS course, you’ll know some basic HTML. If you create a file called index.html somewhere (I use [home directory]/Documents/Code/[project name] to hold files for each project I work on), and put some HTML in the file, you’ll be able to double click on it and it will open in your default browser so you can view it.
A text editor is not one of the most important things you need to be worrying about at this stage. I would probably recommend you use the default text editor for your computer (I’m not sure which one it is, though). If you decide you want something more geared towards writing code than that though, I recommend Brackets, that’s what I use.
I hope this helps! If you have any more questions, please let us know
Wow thanks yes this is what I needed. Ive done the Html course and I finished the Ruby course and I’ve almost finished the python and ruby on rails course. So would I be able to code in ruby on Brackets?
@ste4phen Yes, any text editor (Brackets included) should let you code in any language
To program in Ruby, you would save the file as [something].rb (replacing [something] with the actual name you want for the file), then type ruby [something].rb into your command line - someone who knows Windows better than I do will have to help you if you want to know how to open your command line.
You may need to install Ruby first, but that shouldn’t be too hard with RubyInstaller. I’ve never used it myself, but it looks OK
@ste4phen,
To open your Windows command line, press the Windows key (bottom left near Alt) and R at the same time. This will open up a window titled ‘Run’. In the box, type cmd and press Enter.
This will open up the Command Prompt window. Here you can type commands to control your computer.
If you don’t know how to use the command prompt (I assume you don’t), then do a Google search.
To see all available commands for command prompt, type ? and hit Enter.
If you have any problems or questions, feel free to ask!
