---
title: "2.4 Working with Python in Visual Studio Code: 21 Setting Up Your Computer To Start Learning"
id: "14898"
type: "page"
slug: "01-21-setting-up-your-computer-to-start-learning"
published_at: "2026-07-19T21:45:08+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-07-19T21:45:09+00:00"
url: "https://preppers-paradise.com/library/learnai-assistedpythonprogrammingse/01-21-setting-up-your-computer-to-start-learning/"
markdown_url: "https://preppers-paradise.com/library/learnai-assistedpythonprogrammingse/01-21-setting-up-your-computer-to-start-learning.md"
excerpt: "This book provides a practical guide for beginners to set up their programming environment and start writing software. It covers installing essential tools such as Python and Visual Studio Code, along"
taxonomy_category:
  - "AI & Machine Learning"
  - "Books"
  - "Free Teaser"
taxonomy_post_tag:
  - "ai coding assistant"
  - "coding for beginners"
  - "development environment"
  - "github copilot"
  - "hands-on learning"
  - "ide"
  - "programming"
  - "python"
  - "software development"
  - "visual studio code"
---

# 2.4 Working with Python in Visual Studio Code: 21 Setting Up Your Computer To Start Learning

[← 2.4 Working with Python in Visual Studio Code](/library/learnai-assistedpythonprogrammingse/)

Chapter 1 of 80 · Free teaser

## 2.1 Setting up your computer to start learning

Learning how to write software requires that you go beyond just reading about it and actually perform the task of writing software. If this were a book on how to play guitar, would you keep reading it without ever trying to play the guitar? We thought not. Reading this book without following along and trying it out yourself would be like watching a marathon runner finish the race and thinking you're ready to go run one yourself. We'll stop with the analogies, but seriously, you need to get your software installed and running before we go farther.
What scares us the most right now is that we just hit the most common point where novices, even those eager to learn programming, tend to fail, and we *really* want to see you succeed. Now, you might be thinking, "Wait, really? We're just getting started." Yes, that's exactly the point. In Leo's popular Coursera course about learning Java programming [1], can you guess the point when most new learners leave? Is it the challenging assignment at the end of the course that involves plotting earthquake markers on the globe in real time? No. It's actually the warmup assignment where learners must set up their programming environment. As such, we understand this could be a hurdle for you. We hope that with this not-so-subtle nudge, we can help you achieve all the goals you had in mind when you bought this book. It all starts with installing the software.

## 2.2 The software we'll be using

To set up and use Copilot easily, we'll install the software editing tools used by novices and software engineers alike. The tools you'll use are Python, VS Code, GitHub, and Copilot. Of course, if you already have all of these tools installed, jump to section 2.6.1.

### 2.2.1 Python

Any programming language would have worked for this book, but we picked Python because it's one of the most popular programming languages in the world and is the language we teach in our introductory courses at our universities. As we said in chapter 1, compared to other languages, Python is easier to read, easier to understand, and easier to write. For this book, Copilot will primarily generate the code, not you. However, you'll want to read and understand the code generated by Copilot, and Python is great for that.

### 2.2.2 Visual Studio Code

You can use any text editor to program. However, if you want a nice programming environment where you can write code, easily get suggestions from Copilot, and run your code, VS Code is our preferred tool. VS Code is used by novices learning software and is well liked by students [2]. It's also used globally by professional software engineers, which means you can work and learn while using this environment after finishing the book. For VS Code to work for this book, you'll need to install a few extensions that enable working with Python and using Copilot, but one of the great things about VS Code is that it's easy to install those extensions.

### 2.2.3 GitHub account

GitHub is an industry-standard tool for developing, maintaining, and storing software. We won't use GitHub in this book, however. We're signing up for GitHub simply because you'll need an account to access Copilot. Signing up for a GitHub account is free, but, at the time of writing, they charge for Copilot. If you're a student, they will waive that fee. If you aren't a student, as of writing, you can get a 30-day free trial.

You might ask why they charge for the service, and there's a good answer. It's expensive to build the GPT models (imagine thousands of computers running for a year to build the model), and GitHub incurs costs by providing predictions from the model (many machines are receiving your input, running it through the model, and generating your output). If you're not ready to commit to using Copilot, you could make a calendar note for roughly 25 days from the day you sign up, and if you aren't using Copilot at that time, just cancel. If, on the other hand, you've succeeded in learning how to write software with Copilot and are using it to improve your productivity at work or as a hobby, it may make sense to keep it.

Over the course of this chapter, we'll install all of these tools, but we're going to do this in two parts. The first part, coming up next, will get you set up to write and run code on your own so you become familiar with that process. The second part will set you up to use Copilot to assist you in the process of writing code.