Software setup

VS Code, R, Quarto, TinyTeX, and optional Git / Claude Code

This page is the reference summary of the software stack used in this course. For a step-by-step walkthrough with verification commands, see Lab 1 — Install the stack.

If you only have ten minutes, read Lab 1 first.

The required stack

Tool	What it does	Where to get it
R	The primary computation language for the course — wrangling, plotting, simulation.	https://cran.r-project.org
VS Code (Visual Studio Code)	The course’s standard editor / workbench. Edits `.qmd`, `.tex`, `.R`, and most other text files; has an integrated terminal.	https://code.visualstudio.com
Quarto	The reproducible-document engine. The connective tissue of the course.	https://quarto.org/docs/get-started/
TinyTeX	A minimal LaTeX distribution, installed through R. Lets Quarto render PDFs and lets you compile `.tex` files.	Install from R: `install.packages("tinytex"); tinytex::install_tinytex()`

The four together are enough to do every required piece of work in the course.

VS Code, not Visual Studio

The course standard is Visual Studio Code (also called VS Code) — the free, cross-platform editor at https://code.visualstudio.com. It is not the same product as Visual Studio, Microsoft’s heavier IDE for .NET / C++ / mobile-app development. If you accidentally install Visual Studio, uninstall and start over with VS Code.

Useful VS Code extensions

These are installed from inside VS Code (Extensions sidebar, or Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + X).

Extension	Publisher	Required?
Quarto	quarto.quarto	Yes — adds the Quarto: Preview command (`Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + K`) and `.qmd` support.
R	REditorSupport	Yes — R syntax, terminal integration, help.
vscode-pdf	tomoki1207	Optional — preview rendered PDFs inside VS Code.
GitLens / GitHub Pull Requests	(various)	Optional — only if you use Git/GitHub.

After installing the R extension, install the R language-server package once from inside R for autocomplete and inline help:

install.packages("languageserver")

Optional tools

Tool	When you’d want it
Git	If you plan to use a GitHub (or other) repository for your portfolio. Not required.
Claude Code	Optional AI-assisted coding tool from Anthropic. Requires a paid Anthropic account; no part of the course assumes you have it. If you use it, the standard AI Use Note expectations apply.
RStudio	Optional alternative for students who already know it and strongly prefer it for R work. Not the course standard. Course demos, screenshots, and walkthroughs all use VS Code.
A CAS	See CAS options for the optional Week 13 second-tool exploration.

Verifying the install

Open a terminal (Terminal on mac/Linux, PowerShell on Windows; or use VS Code’s integrated terminal) and run:

R --version
quarto --version
code --version

All three should print version strings. To confirm TinyTeX, start an R session (R in the terminal) and run:

tinytex::tinytex_root()

It should print a path to your TinyTeX install.

Folder convention

Pick a folder for the course and don’t move or rename it:

math-software-portfolio/
├── hw01/
│   ├── hw01.qmd
│   └── hw01.pdf
├── hw02/
├── ...
├── latex-project/
├── r-project/
└── reflection.qmd

Open this folder in VS Code (File → Open Folder…) at the start of each working session. Keep paths inside your .qmd files relative to the folder. That way the project renders on any computer.

Common gotchas

You installed Visual Studio instead of VS Code. Uninstall (or ignore) it and install Visual Studio Code from https://code.visualstudio.com.
First PDF render fails on a fresh TinyTeX. Run quarto render a second time — TinyTeX downloads missing LaTeX packages on demand the first time it sees them.
quarto not on PATH. Restart your terminal after installing Quarto. On Windows, you may need to close every PowerShell window, not just the active one.
VS Code can’t find R. Confirm R --version works in a fresh system terminal, then restart VS Code so it picks up the updated PATH. On Windows, you may need to add R’s bin/ directory to PATH manually.
R chunk doesn’t run in Quarto. Make sure the fence is ```{r} (lowercase r, no spaces inside the braces).
No Quarto commands, or the file shows as “Plain Text”. Check the lower-right corner of VS Code. If it says Plain Text, click it and choose Quarto (or Markdown); confirm the Quarto extension is installed and the file ends in .qmd. To render, press Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + P → Quarto: Preview (or Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + K); the terminal command quarto render yourfile.qmd always works as a fallback.
“No valid input files passed to render”. Your terminal is not in the folder that holds the .qmd, or the filename is misspelled. cd into the right folder, run ls / dir to confirm the file is there, and check the spelling in your quarto render command.
PDF compiles but math is missing. You probably wrote \$x\$ instead of $x$ . Drop the backslashes.
Mac asks for permission to access folders. macOS sandboxing can block R from reading certain folders. Keep your portfolio under ~/Documents/ and you’ll avoid this.
You opened a single .qmd file instead of the portfolio folder. Open the folder (hw01/) via File → Open Folder, not the single file. The Quarto extension behaves better with a workspace set.

Hosted-environment alternatives

If your computer can’t install R locally, two hosted options can work as fallbacks:

VS Code in the browser at https://vscode.dev — useful for editing source files but limited for running R / rendering Quarto. Better for emergencies than as a daily driver.
Posit Cloud at https://posit.cloud — RStudio in a browser with R pre-installed. Useful if you genuinely cannot install R locally; the course standard is VS Code, but submitting a rendered PDF produced anywhere is fine. Free tier has CPU-hour limits.

Neither is required. Use them only if a local install is blocked.