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🍎 MacOS Getting Started

You have it slightly easier than the 🪟 Windows users, but there's still some work to do! Luckily for you people, a lot of the work is done for you and doesn't require typing much.

Step 1: Homebrew and Developer Tools​

Homebrew​

Homebrew will change and/or save your life as a Mac developer. It will also install the C compiler, amongst many other bits and pieces that will be super useful. So let's do it!

Open a Terminal window, you can find it in /Applications/Utilities or press Cmd+Space and search for "terminal". Once you have your Terminal window open, paste the following command in, all on one line. Enter your password when it asks you to:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
tip

When you're typing in your password, you won't actually see it being typed (not even the asterisks!) 👻. Don't worry and just type your password and press Enter at the end. If you got it wrong, the Terminal will ask you to try again!

Once installed, you may see some extra updates for the macOS Developer Tools in the Mac App Store. Go ahead and install those.

Step 2: Set up your IDE​

Visual Studio Code​

VS Code is a great code editor, with a huge community and a number of useful extensions! It works out of the box, with the support for syntax highlighting, debugging, git and many more!

You can download it here or use homebrew:

brew install --cask visual-studio-code
See how to run VS Code directly from Terminal!

Sometimes, it is convenient to run VS Code from your terminal. Let's say you have a simple project in a directory called hello-world/. You can open it in VS Code just like this:

code hello-world/

To make sure your shell understands what to do with the code keyword, you should ensure your VS Code is added to the $PATH environmental variable! Authors of VS Code made it really simple, and you can add VS Code to $PATH with the following steps:

  1. Open VS Code.

  2. Open the editor commands window by pressing Shift+Cmd+P.

  3. Type Shell command PATH, and select Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH.

  4. Authorize with your password, if prompted to do so.

  5. Voilà! Now, test it as follows.

    • Navigate to the home directory:

      cd ~

    • Open VS Code in the home directory

      code .
    note

    The dot symbol . represents your current directory, so you're essentially telling your terminal to run code "here"! Cool, huh?


Jetbrains Toolbox​

The tools you use can transform development from being a chore to a joy. Having a consistent environment across all languages has advantages. Jetbrains tools are free for students, and they offer advanced IntelliSense (auto code completion) capabilities.

  1. If you have not already, sign-up for the Jetbrains Student Pack.
  • If you already have GitHub Student Developer Pack, you should be able to authorize with it.
  • Otherwise, use your UCL email address!
  1. Download the Toolbox App and sign in with your account. This will automatically license any Jetbrains tools on your system.

Step 3: Git​

Git is a really powerful tool ⚡️! It is an example of Version Control Software (VCS), which essentially is a time machine allowing you to track changes, go back in time (when needed!) and collaborate efficiently with fellow developers. It's a true life-saver, when after removing some useless-looking piece of code, it turns out to be critical 3 days later. With git, you can just look it up and revert*!

Git should already be installed, and you can verify that with:

git --version

If not installed you can install with Homebrew:

brew install git

You can then configure your username and email:

git config --global user.name "YourUsername"
git config --global user.email "YourEmail"

To find your GitHub email address you can go here: https://github.com/settings/emails.

*when used properly, LOL

tip

You will be using git and GitHub in several modules and courseworks. There are multiple ways of interacting with GitHub. You can use:

  • GitHub Desktop,
  • Git/GitHub extension to your IDE,
  • git command line interface.

We recommend trying the command line interface. There is a range of useful tutorials:

To make this as smooth as possible, you may want to read how to use Secure Shell (SSH) to connect to GitHub!

Next Steps​