Interactive Development Environments (IDEs): An IDE is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) that has an editor, interpreter and debugger; and thus can be used to write, test and debug code. These are like word processors for coding. Some are programs you install on your computer and others are web services. In this class we will predominantly use the Thonny IDE, which you will run on both your laptop and Raspberry Pi. You may want to get an account for a web service like Replit as you can then run code on any computer without installing Python. LibreTexts also runs a Jupyter Hub in the background, which allows you to run Jupyter notebooks , and so you may want to be familiar with Jupyter too, and you can run Jupyter notebooks from your Google Drive using Google Colaboratory . Code editors use "syntax highlighting" which can help you see errors in your code (fig. \(\PageIndex{1}\)). If you run improper code the IDE will give you a SyntaxError statements, which you can search on Google to find your mistake. These searches often led you to sites like " Stack Overflow ", which is a community where developers can post code and discuss problems. If you wish to get into data sciences you may want to install python through the Anaconda Distribution. This allows you to maintain and update multiple software packages through a single interface, and the Anaconda Navigator is a useful tool for doing this. If you are a computer or data science major it is recommended that you become familiar with Anaconda, while if you are an empirical science major and this is your first programming class, Thonny will work just fine.