Terminal

A terminal is a window where you type commands for your computer instead of clicking. You type a line, press Enter, and the computer answers in text.

On a Mac it's the app called Terminal. On Windows it's PowerShell or Windows Terminal. VS Code has one built in: View → Terminal.

A first command worth knowing checks which Python you have:

bash

python --version

If you've used Stata's Command window or R's console, it's the same idea, and here you talk to the whole computer instead of one program.

Learn more

VS Code
VS Code (Visual Studio Code) is a free code editor from Microsoft. With its Python and Jupyter extensions, it runs notebooks right inside the editor.