Dimensional Analysis with Quarto and VS Code
Embedded Files
If you are interested in alternative technologies to achieve the same outcome, these materials will help you work through the dimensional analysis examples using Quarto in the Visual Studio Code integrated development environment. VS Code is a popular IDE for use in writing python programs, and Quarto can be used to embed python code in a markdown narrative similar to Rmarkdown for R.
These materials assume that you have Quarto and VS Code installed. While this module does not actually make use of VS Code's tools to facilitate programing in python, future modules will. VS Code does not come with python. You might want to install python now, so the eventual installation of the VS Code extension for python can find the current python installation and automatically create the necessary links to it. The links to the python installation used by VS Code can easily be changed using the command palette later.
Here are the direct links for installing R and RStudio, in the order in which they should be installed:
https://www.python.org/downloads/ for downloading and installing python.
https://quarto.org/docs/get-started/ for downloading and installing Quarto.
https://code.visualstudio.com/ for downloading and installing VS Code (better to install python and Quarto first, but not required until you start installing VS Code extensions).
After installing Quarto and VS Code, you will need to install the Quarto extension within VS Code for these exercises. See the extension manager in VS Code for details.
This module also assumes that plentiful public resources are available for helping with the installation of these software packages on your operating system of choice, and does not provide specific narrative or videos on this topic. The remainder of this module essentially uses VS Code as a convenient front end to the the Quarto application, which ultimately uses the pandoc application to translate markdown into formatted documents.
That said, keeping a markdown and python coding environment functional in VS Code inherently requires more fundamental knowledge of what the computer is doing when you are using those tools. VS Code is a much more flexible IDE than RStudio and flexibility usually leads to more combinations of configurations that will not do what you expect. These learning materials don't go into the same level of detail on VS Code and python as RStudio and R, but hopefully they will be helpful if you want to give VS Code a try. If nothing else, hopefully this shows you that the same basic concepts are transferable to many different programming tools and development platforms.
Topics covered in this module
Topics covered in this module
Creating a simple VS Code workspace
Creating a simple VS Code workspace
Similar to RStudio, I like to have a way to open VS Code for a given project that will always put me in the correct working directory. You can create a workspace file in VS Code that will function similar to the RStudio project file for opening VS Code in the correct working directory (3:56 min).
You might also want to set up VS Code to always open files in a new window, to be sure that you have a separate instance of VS Code when you open a new project using a workspace file. That setting can be found under File->Preferences->Settings. Then under the "User" tab find the Window->New Window settings, and change the "Open Files in New Window" to "on".
Rendering markdown using VS Code and Quarto
Rendering markdown using VS Code and Quarto
Once you have a project set up, you can use Quarto and the Quarto extension in VS Code to render markdown into formatted files (9:12 min).
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