These topics are optional and not required for future lectures. Explore them if you're curious or want to deepen your understanding!

The shell reference listings marked text are for reading, not pasting. Type only the command you need, without its # note.

Python on Native Windows PowerShell

The course demos use WSL, but uv can install Python for PowerShell itself:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm <https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1> | iex"

Open a new PowerShell terminal, then run:

uv python install 3.13 --default
uv python update-shell

Reopen the terminal and check python --version. Use python in place of python3 in this environment; the shell commands in Lecture 01 still need WSL.

Other Editors

• Sublime Text: fast and lightweight
• PyCharm: full-featured Python IDE
• nano: simple command-line editor for quick fixes
• Vim / Neovim: modal terminal editors; open with vim filename.py or nvim filename.py. Press i to insert text, then Esc and :wq to save and quit (the answer to "how do I get out of Vim?").

Advanced ls Options

Beyond the basic ls, there are many useful variations:

ls -la          # Long format with hidden files
ls -lh          # Human-readable file sizes
ls -lt          # Sort by modification time
ls -lr          # Reverse order
ls *.py         # List only Python files
ls -R           # Recursive (show subdirectories too)

Python REPL Advanced Features

The interactive Python environment has helpful features:

# Special variables
_                   # Result of last expression
__name__           # Current module name

# Useful functions for exploration
dir()              # List available names
help(print)        # Get help on function
type(variable)     # Check variable type
len(text)          # Length of strings/lists

Command History and Shortcuts