Introduction¶

Hey, seeing as you clicked this you presumably have little to no experience in the Computer Science or Software Engineering field, and that's totally okay.

Here on the DFR Software team, very few people have any kind of background knowledge with most of the technologies that we utilize on a daily basis when they enter the club, and that's 100% normal. For most, any kind of formal education up until college lacks any form of "computer education," despite using them almost every day. So suffice to say, you're not alone, and hopefully with the help of this onboarding, and your own willingness to learn (this really is the most important thing you need), you'll be a contributing member of the team in no time!

Before you get started¶

When it comes to learning any language or technology, I always recommend that you go ahead and give yourself an end goal of what you want to accomplish before starting anything. For example if you want to learn Python, then you could give yourself the goal of wanting to make your own local webserver. From that goal learning how to build it with your own research, or knowledge you carry from elsewhere, will allow you to learn how different parts of the Python language interact, along with also actively learning how to problem solve. Instead of simply following a tutorial that tells you everything to do.

Getting started¶

Choosing an IDE¶

If you're truly brand new to programming at all, then you've likely never heard of what an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is, and that's all good.

When most CS/SE students come to UTD, they are presented with an online IDE like OnlineGDB through their classes, and while this does suit the needs of most class here on campus, there should never be a time when you rely on an online IDE for any kind of "large scale" development, or really ever... It's best practice to avoid using any online IDEs, primarily from a usability standpoint, but also because a local IDE, such as VS Code, has many more useful features when developing anything.

Something worth considering, is there is a VAST variety of IDEs, and not all of them are created equal. In essence this means that it's kind of personal preference as to what your favorite environment is, and as such below will be a list of the most commonly used IDEs for all kinds of development. (Note, there are many IDEs that are specialized in a specific language, or type of development, but for the sake of this write-up I will only be focusing on lightweight IDEs that work with "any" language.) 4

(Below list taken from Awesome-IDEs. I highly recommend checking this list out if you want a larger more specified list of IDEs.)

Name	Description	Links	System Support	Fees
Visual Studio Code	A highly customizable code editor with a wide range of extensions for various languages and frameworks.	Offical Website Guthub	Mac Windows Linux Online Chrome OS	Free, Proprietary, Open-Source
PyCharm	An intelligent Python IDE with integrated tools for efficient coding and debugging.	Official Website Github	Mac Windows Linux	Paid, Proprietary, Freemium, Open-Source
Eclipse	A versatile IDE is known for its Java development capabilities and extensive plugin ecosystem.	Official Website	Mac Windows Linux BSD	Paid, Proprietary, Freemium, Open-Source
KDevelop	A cross-platform IDE for C, C++, Python, QML/JavaScript and PHP	Official Website Github	Windows Linux KDE	Free, Open-Source
Microsoft Visual Studio	An integrated development environment for various programming languages, including C++, C#, and more.	Official Website	Mac Windows Online .NET Framework	Free, Paid, Proprietary

My personal recommendation is VS Code for it's versatility and how lightweight it is out of the box. On top of those factors it also has a MASSIVE plugin/extension community that likely has any and all means of solving any problem that you might run into while using VS Code, including also being one of the most customizable visually.

Downloading and installing Python¶

As most, if not all, of the projects within DFR are based on Python, having it on your system is a very important step.

Most of the projects here are developed on Python 3.10.X and higher. This means that you will at the very least need some version of Python, greater than or equal to 3.10.X.

The most up to date versions as of the time of writing, with installers, can be found in the list below.

Once you have selected a version, find the installer for your specific operating system, in most cases this will be the Windows installer (64-bit).

Again assuming you are on a Windows operating system, open the installer with administrative permissions, and once open make sure to tick the Add python.exe to PATH check box at the bottom of the installer before clicking "Install Now".

After the installer completes, you can check if you have Python available by opening your terminal of choice and typing the command python --version, at which point you should see the console display a string of text that states your installed Python version (If on Windows you can open your terminal by pressing your Windows key + R, then within the box that appears typing cmd and clicking OK.)

What now?¶

After you have selected an IDE, and successfully installed Python, you're good to continue onto where everyone else would start! You can do this by revisiting the Resources page, checking the sidebar, or just by clicking the "Next" arrow right below this.