There are a lot of different editors and it largely boils down to personal preference. Most Python programmers use complex but extremely powerful IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), such as PyCharm. As a beginner, however, that's probably less suitable; our recommendations are equally powerful, but a lot simpler.

Our suggestions are below, but feel free to ask your coach what their preferences are - it'll be easier to get help from them.

Gedit is an open-source, free editor, available for all operating systems.

[Download it here](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gedit#Download)

Sublime Text is a very popular editor with a free evaluation period. It's easy to install and use, and it's available for all operating systems.

[Download it here](http://www.sublimetext.com/2)

Atom is an extremely new code editor created by [GitHub](http://github.com/). It's free, open-source, easy to install and easy to use. It's available for Windows, OSX and Linux.

[Download it here](https://atom.io/)

You might be wondering why we are installing this special code editor software, rather than using something like Word or Notepad.

The first is that code needs to be **plain text**, and the problem with programs like Word and Textedit is that they don't actually produce plain text, they produce rich text (with fonts and formatting), using custom formats like rtf.

The second reason is that code editors are specialised in editing code, so they can provide helpful features, like highlighting code with colour according to its meaning, or automatically closing quotes for you.

We'll see all this in action later. Soon, you'll come to think of your trusty old code editor as one of your favourite tools :)

You can download Git from [git-scm.com](http://git-scm.com/). You can hit "next next next" on all steps except for one; in the 5th step entitled "Adjusting your PATH environment", choose "Run Git and associated Unix tools from the Windows command-line" (the bottom option). Other than that, the defaults are fine. Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings is good.

Download Git from [git-scm.com](http://git-scm.com/) and just follow the instructions.

If it isn't installed already, git should be available via your package manager, so try:

sudo apt-get install git

# or

sudo yum install git

Go to [GitHub.com](http://www.github.com) and sign up for a new, free user account. Then, create a new repository, giving it the name "my-first-blog". Leave the "initialise with a README" tickbox un-checked, leave the .gitignore option blank (we've done that manually) and leave the License as None.

Next it's time to sign up for a free "Beginner" account on PythonAnywhere.

* [www.pythonanywhere.com](https://www.pythonanywhere.com/)

tutorial](http://django-marcador.keimlink.de/) licensed under Creative Commons

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The django-marcador tutorial

is copyrighted by Markus Zapke-Gründemann et al.

Before we install Django, we'll get you to install an extremely useful tool that will help keep your coding environment tidy on your computer. It's possible to skip this step, but it's highly recommended not to - starting with the best possible setup will save you a lot of trouble in the future!

So, let's create a **virtual environment** (also called a *virtualenv*). It will isolate your Python/Django setup on a per-project basis, meaning that any changes you make to one website won't affect any others you're also developing. Neat, right?

All you need to do is find a directory in which you want to create the `virtualenv`; your home directory, for example. On Windows it might look like `C:\Users\Name\` (where `Name` is the name of your login).

For this tutorial we will be using a new directory `djangogirls` from your home directory:

mkdir djangogirls

cd djangogirls

We will make a virtualenv called `myvenv`. The general command will be in the format:

python3 -m venv myvenv

To create a new `virtualenv`, you need to open the console (we told you about that a few chapters ago - remember?) and run `C:\Python34\python -m venv myvenv`. It will look like this:

C:\Users\Name\djangogirls> C:\Python34\python -m venv myvenv

where `C:\Python34\python` is the directory in which you previously installed Python and `myvenv` is the name of your `virtualenv`. You can use any other name, but stick to lowercase and use no spaces, accents or special characters. It is also good idea to keep the name short - you'll be referencing it a lot!

Creating a `virtualenv` on both Linux and OS X is as simple as running `python3 -m venv myvenv`.

It will look like this:

~/djangogirls$ python3 -m venv myvenv

`myvenv` is the name of your `virtualenv`. You can use any other name, but stick to lowercase and use no spaces. It is also good idea to keep the name short - you'll be referencing it a lot!

The command above will create a directory called `myvenv` (or whatever name you chose) that contains our virtual environment (basically a bunch of directory and files). All we want to do now is start it by running:

C:\Users\Name\djangogirls> myvenv\Scripts\activate

on Windows, or:

~/djangogirls$ source myvenv/bin/activate

on OS X and Linux.

Remember to replace `myvenv` with your chosen `virtualenv` name!

You will know that you have `virtualenv` started when you see that the prompt in your console looks like:

(myvenv) C:\Users\Name\djangogirls>

or:

(myvenv) ~/djangogirls$

Notice the prefix `(myvenv)` appears!

When working within a virtual environment, `python` will automatically refer to the correct version so you can use `python` instead of `python3`.

OK, we have all important dependencies in place. We can finally install Django!

Now that you have your `virtualenv` started, you can install Django using `pip`. In the console, run `pip install django==1.8` (note that we use a double equal sign: `==`).

(myvenv) ~$ pip install django==1.8

Downloading/unpacking django==1.8

Installing collected packages: django

Successfully installed django

Cleaning up...

on Windows

on Linux

That's it! You're now (finally) ready to create a Django application!