Prerequisites

Everything that you need, in order to get your development journey started on solana and beyond!

Go to https://github.com/ and sign up for a github account.

Next you'll want to download "GItHub Desktop" for your mac or your pc

Go here and download the file and install it on your computer: https://desktop.github.com/download/

This will help you figure out how to deploy and commit your project files before learning the commands.

Next your going to want to install an IDE.

What is an IDE?

An IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. It’s a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE typically includes the following components:

1.	Source Code Editor: A text editor that helps you write and edit code with features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and code folding.
2.	Compiler/Interpreter: A tool that translates your code from a high-level programming language to machine code or an intermediate language that can be executed by a computer.
3.	Debugger: A tool that helps you test and debug your code by allowing you to step through your code, inspect variables, and set breakpoints.
4.	Build Automation Tools: Tools that help automate repetitive tasks like compiling code, packaging binaries, and running tests.
5.	Version Control: Some IDEs integrate with version control systems like Git, making it easier to manage changes to your code over time.

Examples of popular IDEs include Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, Eclipse, and Xcode. IDEs are designed to increase developer productivity by offering a cohesive environment where you can write, test, and debug your code all in one place.

For the tutorials, I want you to download both, Visual Studio Code, and Cursor AI.

Visual Studio Code on macOS

Visual Studio Code for Mac (Direct Link): https://code.visualstudio.com/docs?dv=osx

Installation

1. Download Visual Studio Code for macOS.
2. Open the browser's download list and locate the downloaded app or archive.

3. If archive, extract the archive contents. Use double-click for some browsers or select the 'magnifying glass' icon with Safari.

4. Drag Visual Studio Code.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the macOS Launchpad.

5. Open VS Code from the Applications folder, by double clicking the icon.

6. Add VS Code to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon, located in the Dock, to bring up the context menu and choosing Options, Keep in Dock.

Next you'll want to install a plethora of extensions to help you on your development journey.

One of them is Claude Dev. But we will get to that later anon.

Cursor For Mac

https://www.cursor.com/ Download the software, install it, bada bing, bada boom.

You now have both of the most advanced IDE's known to man running locally, congrats!

Now it's time to onboard you to the use of language models in development or coding.

The language model I use, Is Claude by Anthropic.

Go to: https://www.anthropic.com/

Sign up for an account, and head here after sign up.

Claude

That is where you start all of your new chats, you can also pay for premium which I highly recommend.

Than the next step would be to add API credits.

Head to: https://console.anthropic.com/dashboard and add API credits using your money.

You now have the full tech stack ready to go.

You'll than want to integrate Visual Studio Code and Claude, etc.

Follow the instructions step by step and you will be good to go.