# Newbie's Guide

This guide assumes you've never used Julia or ModelingToolkit before.

# Install Julia

You can download Julia for your platform from this page:

Alternatively, if you want the option to easily install and switch between different Julia versions, then use juliaup.

# Add Dependencies

Once you've downloaded Julia, you'll need to download copies of various packages to your local computer. To do this, run julia. You should see a prompt that looks like this:

julia>

This is known as the Julia REPL (REPL stands for Read-Evalulate-Print-Loop).

Now, type ]. You should see a prompt that looks like:

(@v1.9) pkg>

Do the following:

(@v1.9) pkg> add DifferentialEquations
...
(@v1.9) pkg> add ModelingToolkit
...
(@v1.9) pkg> add Plots
...

When done, hit "Backspace" or "Delete" to return to the Julia prompt

julia>

# VS Code

If you are using VS Code to write Julia code (and why wouldn't you?!?), then you'll want to install the Julia extension (identifier julialang.language-julia).