# IST356 Course Setup

If you are taking IST356, odds are you want to pursue a career in data science or data anlytics. Concequentally, you will need to learn the tools and techiques used by those in the industry. This document will walk you through getting ready to code in this course.

## 🧑‍💻 Step 1: Install Prerequisite Software 

There are two ways you can code in this class:

1. **Setup Your Computer** - install everything on your machine. Your computer will need at least 16GB ram and 10GB of free disk space. 
2. **Use Github Codespaces** - cloud hosted, no setup, works with any computer, but you are given a limited number of free compute.

Each has their pros / cons. **I strongly suggest doing both.**

- To setup your computer, Go to: [Installing Pre-Requisites](0-1-install-pre-reqs.md) and follow the instructions.
- Once you setup your GitHub account you will have access to Codespaces

## 🏛️ Step 2: Github Account Linked to your netid

Being an SU student comes with some perks. One of them is a Github for Education account and accompanying "packpack" of goodies. To use this benefit, your github account must be associated with your **@syr.edu** email.

### IF YOU HAVE A GITHUB ACCOUNT ALREADY:

Associate your current account with SU, by adding your email:

1. Go to to https://github.com  and click Sign In 
2. Once you have logged in, go to: https://github.com/settings/emails  
3. Add and verify your SU email address.


### IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A GITHUB ACCOUNT:

You'll need to create an account:

1. Go to to https://github.com  and click Sign In 
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to sign up for an account.
3. Make sure to use your **@syr.edu** email for the account.
4. Add your personal email when you're at it so you don't lose Github access after you graduate!

### Github Backpack Access for Students

1. Go to the Github Backpack site:  https://education.github.com/pack  
and click **Sign Up For Student Developer Pack**
2. Once your account is verified, you will have backpack access.
3. You'll know its active when you check your billing plan: https://github.com/settings/billing/summary   
you should see a credit here.
4. Once you have backpack access, you can enable Github Copilot AI. https://github.com/settings/copilot 
5. You will also have access to codepaces.  https://github.com/features/codespaces


## 🍴 Step 3: Fork the Course Repository

The course repository It's like a mash-up between a textbook, lab environment, personal notebook, and coding environment. I think you will find it an awesome way to engage with the course.

A *fork* is your personal copy of the repository. The repository you forked from is called the *upstream*.

To make your fork:

1. Login to https://github.com with your Github Account
2. Create a fork of the Course Repository. 
   Go to https://github.com/mafudge/ist356 and click the **Fork** button above the code button.
3. You will be presented with a screen to change the name of the repository. Leave it as is. Make sure the owner is your Github account, then click **Create Fork**
4. Once the fork completes, you will have a personal copy of the repo at https://github.com/YOURGITHUB/ist356
5. You will also see a new button **Sync Fork** you'll need to click this if I make any updates to the upstream **mafudge/ist356** which you would like in your personal copy.


## 📋 Step 4: Access the Course Repository

Accessing the course repository is going to depend of whether you are using  **Your Computer** or **Github Codepsaces**

### On Your Computer:

> 🔝 **PREREQUISITE STEP** 🔝 Create a folder for this course.  
If you're going to work on your computer, make a folder for all the course materials and assignments. Know where this folder is and how to open the terminal from it.  If you are unfamiliar but would like to learn more, take this 15-minute course:  https://cent-ischool.github.io/command-line-essentials/ 


**Clone the repository (from the command line):**

1. Open a terminal in your course folder.
2. Clone your fork (replace `YOURGITHUB` with your GitHub account):  
   `git clone https://github.com/YOURGITHUB/ist356`  
   This creates an `ist356` folder inside your course folder containing the course repository.
3. Switch to the cloned folder:  
   `cd ist356` 
4. Lauch VS Code:  
   `code .` 

**Open the dev container (from VS Code):**

4. When VS Code opens the folder, it detects the `.devcontainer` configuration and shows a notification in the bottom-right: **"Reopen in Container"** — click it.  
   (If you miss the notification, press `F1`, type **Dev Containers: Reopen in Container**, and press ENTER.)
5. The first time, VS Code downloads the container image — **about 1.3 GB**. Watch the progress in the bottom-right; **click it to view the log** so you can see it actually moving. On a slow connection this can take 20 minutes or more, and while it runs VS Code looks like it's doing nothing. It isn't stuck — it's downloading.  
   To download it ahead of time with a real progress bar instead, run `docker pull mafudge/ist356:latest` in a terminal first.
6. When it finishes, the green button in the bottom-left corner reads **Dev Container: IST356 Course Content**. You're now coding inside the container with Python, Jupyter, and everything else pre-installed. 🎉

### On Github Codespaces:

1. Login to https://github.com and go to your fork at https://github.com/YOURGITHUB/ist356
2. Click the green **Code** button, choose the **Codespaces** tab, and click **Create codespace on main**.
3. Wait for the codespace to build. When it's ready you'll have a full VS Code environment in your browser with the repository already cloned — no local setup required.

## Next Steps?

Try the [**Course Repository Walkthrough**](0-2-course-repo-walkthrough.md)

This will explain how to use VS Code in this course to run, debug, etc.