Introduction
The Integrated Development Environment
What is an IDE?
You will need to use an IDE, a piece of software called an Integrated Development Environment. There are various ones out there you can use. A common one is Visual Studio Code (you can find the link to the download on the Getting Started page).
Definition: Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
An integrated development environment is specialist software to allow you to create computer programs with code.
An IDE provides
- a code editor that provides built in support like syntax highlighting, autocorrect and auto-indentation.
- error diagnostics to highlight syntax errors in your code.
- a run time environment to allow you to run and test your code within the software
- a translator to convert your code into something the machine can run
Code Editor
The code editor allows you to type in your code, but it also provides syntax highlighting. Notice the print statement is a different colour. Also it will autcomplete where necessary for example things that have an open and close like "" () {}. It can also be used to tidy up your codes appearance using auto-indentation.
Error diagnostics
If you have errors in your code your IDE can present these to you 
An IDE also has a debugger. This allows you to step through each line of code inspecting the values of the variables as they change. You can setup breakpoints that allow you to stop the code at certain points during the execution so you can inspect that the variables are what you expect them to be.
Run time environment
When you run your code the IDE will run it for you and present the results.
Translator
The IDE will have a translator that will either Compile your code if it is a compiled language or interpret your code if it is an interpreted language.
This is the python version I currently have on my ide.
In Python the code is interpreted. This means that each line is translated as you run the code, so the code will run until it hits an error.
A compiled language, like Java, will translate all the code and create a separate file that can be run without a translator. This means you could package your file for distribution and the source code will not be accessible.
Both Python and Java are examples of High Level languages. These are languages that are easier to understand for humans as they use words like If, For, While and are closer to English than low level languages (LMC) or machine code (binary)