Required Course Tools - 5367

You will need:

Web Browser
Text Editor / IDE
File Transfer Program (some "File explorer" type programs have this built in)
Terminal Emulator/Shell (probably? This may be optional for Windows people)

Optional but Strongly Recommended, especially if you are a beginner:

Access to a computer capable of running a Linux virtual machine or containers (if you're unsure, odds are you can, but we will have to confirm)

Setting up a Linux virtual machine (or using Linux) will keep you "in harmony" with most practical coding

Web Browser

I highly recommend Firefox over all other major browsers, but this is a shifting environment as always.

Text Editor

Generally, you may use whatever works best for you. Some level of IDE type tools is strongly recommended, i.e. something beyond "Notepad."

Solo applications

An excellent cross platform default is Geany

Cross-Platform:
ScITE / Scintilla
jEdit -

Linux (Graphical User Interface)
Leafpad
Gedit

Linux (Command Line)

nano
vi/vim
emacs

Windows
notepad++

Mac (wow, it was hard finding free ones, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised)
TextWrangler (I think)

Of course there are also the Gorillas, especially VSCode. This is fine; I've tried it and I could see the appeal, though it's not my style.

In browser coding

I imagine this will be partly an option as well, especially in light of Generative AI.

File Transfer (FTP/SFTP)

You will need a program or other method of copying the html files that you create to a webserver. One option is to use the command line; I imagine Linux users will already be somewhat familiar with this approach.

Details on Filezilla, a cross-platform program, are available here.

Terminal Emulator/ Shell

Linux and Mac users have these built in.

Windows users have a slightly confusing range of issues to deal with, since most of the web is a "Unix/Linux/*nix" type of environment, and Microsoft was ill-prepared for the internet generally. Very very recently, Windows has added the use of GNU and Linux shell tools, with the horribly and ridiculously named "Windows Subsystem for Linux" (a Linux subsystem that lives in Windows) so you may want to check that out. (Embrace, extend, extinguish?)

PuTTY (and PSCP/PSFTP) is a good choice for basic command-line work,
Cygwin is another interesting option for users who want a more complete option.

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