Section 0: Introduction

Before we can start writing code, we need to setup our development environment. Depending on the language you want to develop in, which environment you use can change. There are some IDEs that provide nearly universal support through the use of extensions and plugins. However, I personally prefer IDEs that are built around specific support for individual languages, as I find they're easier to get projects setup in and the tooling they provide to be better supported for that language. What you decide to use is purely up to you, but here's some suggestions.

These programs can support a wide variety of languages, mainly through the use of plugins and extensions to provide the proper tooling. For the upcoming sections, I won't be utilizing these, but they might be useful for you.
  • Visual Studio Code: Even though I won't be using this, I still highly recommend this one. It's fantastic for editing in a variety of different file formats, and does have extension support for many languages. While I mainly only use it for web development and python, it has the capability for more languages.
  • Eclipse IDE: I've mainly used this IDE for Java development, but I've heard it can be used for many other languages through its plugin support. I'm not sure how well supported those other languages are, but worth to look in to as an alternative.
For the Java portion of these sections, I'll be working in IntelliJ IDEA. This is a very popular IDE for Java development, as I know of a number of colleges use it in their undergraduate programs. I was introduced to it through my investigation of Minecraft modding, and found it to be fairly intuitive to develop in. For information on using this IDE, here's their Getting Started Documentation.
For the C++ portion of these sections, I'll be working in Visual Studio Community Edition. This is a more of a traditional IDE than Visual Studio Code, which is why I prefer doing my development with this over Code. It's also the IDE I use for work, so I'm quite familiar with the tools that it provides. For information on using this IDE, here's their Getting Started Documentation.

Once you have your preferred IDE setup, continue onto Section #1 to begin! There's we'll review the fundamental basic syntax of programming.