When I was first learning how to code, our university made us use the terminal to write, compile, and run our code. They didn’t even teach us how to use an IDE, so the terminal was our IDE. If you don’t know what an IDE is, it stands for Integrated Development Environment. Terminal was my first IDE.

Now, I am thankful that my university taught us to use the terminal first because it’s actually a really important and powerful tool for software developers. It allows you to interact more directly with your computer—you can write, compile, and run your code, as well as handle a lot of configurations.

For example, when I was working in networks and security, I built programs that involved sending data to other computers and devices, which required a lot of network configuration on my machine. I needed to use the terminal to set my network up for these applications.

When I was starting out, the terminal was my go-to IDE. But you’re probably smarter than me and are already using a real IDE, or maybe you’re using VS Code, which is a code editor that behaves like an IDE. Eventually, though, if you’re a real developer, you’ll need to learn how to use the terminal inside your IDE.

That’s why I’m making this video: to help you use the terminal with VS Code. One of the first problems I had with VS Code was that when I ran my program, it would run in the output tab instead of the terminal tab. I wanted it to run in the terminal tab because it allowed me to stop the program easily or input data to test my program.

In this video, you’ll learn:
✅ How to open the terminal window in VS Code
✅ 2 ways to run your programs in the terminal
✅ Some basic terminal commands

Thank you for watching, and happy coding! 💻🧡
-Henrik