2 Getting started with Copilot
This chapter covers
- Setting up Python, VS Code, and Copilot on your system
- Introducing the Copilot design process
- Copilot’s value for a basic data processing task
This chapter will help you start working with Copilot on your own machine and familiarize you with how to interact with it. After you are set up with Copilot, we’ll ask that you follow along with our examples when you can. There’s no substitute for practice, and we believe you can learn right alongside us for the remainder of the book.
Once you’ve set up Copilot, we’ll walk through a fun example that showcases the power of Copilot in solving standard tasks, you’ll see how to interact with Copilot, and you’ll learn how we can write software without writing any actual code ourselves.
2.1 Time to set up your computer to start learning
Learning how to write software requires that you perform the task of writing software, not just reading about it. If this were a book on how to play guitar, would you keep reading it without ever trying to play the guitar? We thought not. Reading this book without following along and trying it out yourself would be like watching a marathon runner finish the race and thinking you’re ready to go run one yourself. We’ll stop with the analogies, but seriously, you need to get your software installed and running before we go farther.