ICS 33 Spring 2024
Project 0: History of Modern
Installation and Configuration on Windows
Introduction
This document explains how to install the ICS 33 development environment on a machine running the Windows operating system. You'll need to be sure you pay attention to small details as you follow through them.
Step 1: Show file name extensions
The first step is not to install a software package at all, but to reconfigure a Windows default that is fine for everyday users, but very troublesome for those of us who write programs or do other serious work. By default, when Windows displays a list of filenames (e.g., in File Explorer, Windows Explorer, or on the desktop), it hides the "file name extension" (i.e., the part of the filename that follows the last dot), so that a file named alex.txt will simply have its name displayed as alex instead, with an icon used to visually differentiate one "type" of file from another.
This default is fine for casual users, but is certain to cause us problems in this course — and routinely causes problems for students in courses where there is programming involved — so everyone needs to turn this off, which is easy to do:
Seriously! Do this! You'll be very glad you did; as a programmer, filenames and their extensions are often relevant to the work you're doing, so it's important to see filenames as they are.
Step 2: Downloading and installing Python
If you've taken previous coursework in Python, you may already have a version of Python installed on your machine, but it will be important that you use the right version in this course. As of this writing, the latest release of Python 3.12 is Python 3.12.2 64-bit for Windows, which is available at the following link.
Note, too, that the Microsoft Store has a version of Python available, but you'll generally want to avoid this installation and stick with the one available from python.org linked above.
Before you run this, it's not a bad idea to uninstall any other version you already have installed. While different versions of Python can safely coexist on a system in some cases, they do cause some confusion, so if you don't have a specific reason to maintain multiple versions, it's easiest to keep just one. You can uninstall Python just as you would any other Windows application (e.g., Add/Remove Programs, Programs and Features, etc., depending on your Windows version).
When you run this, there are a few settings worth tweaking in the installer's defaults.
The installation will proceed from there and will probably take a little time to run. When you're done, you can feel free to delete the Python installer you downloaded; you won't need it again.
Step 3: Downloading and installing Git
The next thing you'll need to install is a version control system called Git, which we'll be using throughout the quarter, which is available at the following link.
That page contains a few different links, but your best bet is the one titled 64-bit Git for Windows Setup. Click that link to download the installer.
When you run this, you'll want to tweak the settings a bit, similar to what you did when you installed Python. Being a tool that's used in a lot of heavy-duty and heavily customized development environments, Git's installer asks you to make a lot of choices, but the defaults will mostly be okay. Still, follow along with what's written below and you should be in good shape this quarter.
The installation will proceed from there and will probably take a little time to run. When you're done, you can feel free to delete the Git installer you downloaded; you won't need it again.
Step 4: Downloading, installing, and licensing PyCharm Professional
The only remaining thing you'll need to install is an integrated development environment called PyCharm, which we'll be using for our work this quarter. Specifically, we'll be using PyCharm Professional, which is the full-fledged version of PyCharm; some of its fancy "professional" features will be important in this course.
PyCharm Professional is available at the following link.
Choose Windows as your operating system and click the Download button underneath Professional (and not Community). (Don't worry about cost, though; UCI students can obtain PyCharm Professional and license it for use in a course like this one, free of charge.) This will download the PyCharm Professional installer.
When you run this, you'll again have some choices to make, but I've found that the defaults are entirely fine for our uses, so click Next repeatedly until the installation process starts. The installation will proceed from there and will probably take a little time to run. When you're done, you can feel free to delete the PyCharm Professional installer you downloaded; you won't need it again.
Licensing your PyCharm Professional installation
After you've installed PyCharm Professional, launch it (e.g., by selecting it from your Start menu). The first time you start it up, you'll be asked to accept a user agreement, and to decide whether you're willing to share data with JetBrains (the company that builds and sells PyCharm). At that point, you'll have one more hurdle to clear: PyCharm Professional needs a license. Fortunately, UCI students can obtain a license free of charge, but that'll require completing a couple of administrative tasks.
First, visit the link below, which is a form you'll need to fill out to apply for a JetBrains Educational Pack, which is essentially a license to use PyCharm Professional (and all other JetBrains development environments, if you'd like) for non-commercial purposes.
Note that you'll need to give them a valid university email address — your @uci.edu
email address is almost certainly going to be the right choice. You may be told that your request will not be processed immediately (i.e., that it will require human review), so you can expect there to be some delay in receiving a response. We've had students report that this can take as long as a week, though there's no need to panic; you'll have installed a 30-day trial version, so you won't need to get the license settled immediately, though you'll need to remember to finish this process, as we will not be offering due date extensions to students who claim to have had their trial version expire.
Ultimately, you should receive an email at that address, asking you to confirm your request and create a JetBrains Account. Follow those instructions and get your JetBrains Account created.
Once you've got your JetBrains Account set up, you can now proceed with licensing your PyCharm Professional installation.
That's it. You're in business. PyCharm Professional is now licensed.
Congratulations!
Nice work! You should now have all of the tools you need to proceed with your work this quarter.