The Coder’s Computer

Choosing a Text Editor

Choosing a text editor ends up being a very personal choice as personal as the sports teams you support.

** What is a text editor? **

A text editor is a piece of software that you download and install on your computer, or you access online through your web browser, that allows you to write and manage text, ** especially the text that you write to build a web site. **

What features should you look for in a text editor?

1. Code completion Code completion allows you to start typing, and the code completion feature will display possible suggestions based on what you originally typed.

   This saves you time by providing a choice, rather than allowing you to finish typing.

2. Syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature that takes the text you type, and makes it more noticeable by colorizing the text. Attributes are a different color than elements. And elements are a different color than copy.

   This makes it so much easier when you’re looking for an error and you can’t find it. As well as making your text easier to read.

3. A nice variety of themes These themes will allow you to change the color of the background of your text editor, the series of colors in your text, and sometimes themes will affect other aspects of your text editing software as well.

   it’s good to find a theme that might reduce eye strain and fatigue.

Extensions are like plugins for your text editor, that allow you to have superpowers that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Third-Party Options

software like:Notepad++, Text Wrangler, BB Edit, Visual Studio Code, Atom,Brackets, and Sublime Text.

Basic terminal usage.

A command line, or terminal, is a text based interface to the system. You are able to enter commands by typing them on the keyboard and feedback will be given to you similarly as text.

When you enter commands, they are actually stored in a history.

You can traverse this history using the up and down arrow keys. So don’t bother re-typing out commands you have previously entered

The Shell, Bash

Within a terminal you have what is known as a shell. This is a part of the operating system that defines how the terminal will behave and looks after running (or executing) commands for you.

use a command called echo if you would like to know which shell you are using.

There are various shells available but the most common one is called bash

Important Concepts

1. Paths Whenever we refer to either a file or directory on the command line, we are in fact referring to a path. ie. A path is a means to get to a particular file or directory on the system. There are 2 types of paths we can use
   • Relative path A file or directory location relative to where we currently are in the file system.
   • Absolute path A file or directory location in relation to the root of the file system.

2. Everything is a File Everything is a file under Linux. A text file is a file, a directory is a file, your keyboard is a file, your monitor is a file etc.

3. Linux is an Extensionless System Under Linux the system actually ignores the extension and looks inside the file to determine what type of file it is. Files can have any extension they like or none at all.

4. Linux is Case Sensitive Beware of silly typos.

5. Hidden Files and Directories If the file or directory’s name begins with a . (full stop) then it is considered to be hidden.

Commands are used

• pwd Print Working Directory - ie. Where are we currently.
• ls List the contents of a directory.
• cd Change Directories - ie. move to another directory.
• file obtain information about what type of file a file or directory is.
• ls -a List the contents of a directory, including hidden files.