Coding Environment Setup#

This page walks through the baseline tools you need before starting any Week 1 work. Set these up once and verify each step before moving on. Everything here is cross-platform (Linux, macOS, WSL on Windows).

Demo content for the May 2026 term. Commands are illustrative — confirm versions against the official course announcements.

What you will install#

Tool	Why	Verify with
A terminal / shell	Run every other tool from one place	`echo $SHELL`
`uv` + Python	Manage Python and dependencies reproducibly	`uv --version`
VS Code	Edit code, run notebooks, use extensions	`code --version`
Git + GitHub	Track and submit your work	`git --version`

1. Terminal and shell#

Open your terminal (Terminal on macOS, your distro’s terminal on Linux, or Ubuntu/WSL on Windows) and confirm you have a working shell:

echo "$SHELL"
uname -a

If you are new to the command line, start with the shell basics guide.

2. Python with `uv`#

We use uv to install Python and manage project environments. It is fast and keeps each project’s dependencies isolated and reproducible.

# Install uv (macOS / Linux / WSL)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Restart the shell, then verify
uv --version

# Install a Python version and create a scratch project
uv python install 3.12
uv init tds-week1 && cd tds-week1
uv add requests
uv run python -c "import requests, sys; print(sys.version)"

You should see a Python 3.12 version string and no import errors.

3. VS Code#

Install VS Code and the Python extension. Enabling the code command lets you open any folder from the terminal:

code --version
code .            # opens the current folder in VS Code

Recommended extensions for this course: Python, Jupyter, and GitLens.

4. Git and GitHub#

You will submit work through GitHub, so configure Git with your identity:

git --version
git config --global user.name  "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

# Confirm
git config --global --list

Create a free GitHub account if you do not have one, and add an SSH key or sign in with the GitHub CLI so you can push without typing a password each time.

Verify everything#

Run this quick checklist — every command should print a version, not an error:

echo "$SHELL" && uv --version && code --version && git --version

Checklist#

Terminal opens and reports a shell
uv installs and runs Python 3.12
VS Code opens folders from the code command
Git knows your name and email
GitHub account ready for submissions