Environment

I use the three main desktop operating systems, I don’t really have an issue flipping between them, but some are better at things than others, for me, I use Windows for Gaming and some Office work, I use Linux for Privacy and some Development work and I use MacOS for Productivity and Mobility.

So I prefer to develop using Linux, unless I’m working with Flutter, then the MacBook is much better for me, but because I like to code on the move, or I like to code in more than one place, I tend to code on a MacBook Air.

Whats with the background story?

Because setting up your environment is really complicated. On the face of it, it is not complicated, but you need to know your OS before you start. In my opinion, getting PHP up and running on MacOS and Linux is easier than Windows, but even then, different distributions of Linux do things differently, so basically, this is a you problem.

What about the IDE?

Again, another absolute nightmare to describe. We all have different tastes and requirements, previous experience and what our friends or co-workers use will all play on this decision. For me I use VS Code and I don’t really know why, it is not what I used at the beginning of my journey, but it is the one I’ve used for the last few years. It is cross-platform, so it does work well for people like me that jump between platforms, but this is entirely your preference.

Get PHP installed and then get yourself an IDE installed.

Our first Console App

I am not going to start this with a description of variables etc, we can also skip the Hello World examples, there’s enough of that already. Instead, let’s go on to the third most popular ‘how to’ example and build a simple calculator, not a complete calculator, but something that can take 2 numbers and do something with them.

Hello calculation machine