Beginner to Programming

I'm extremely confused on how and where to code as I'm a beginner to programming and am unsure of how codespaces, mains, and compliers work. Additionally, I'm unsure how to sync Github with VScode. Also my code doesn't run for some reason as I keep getting notifications saying I need to download extensions but it still doesn't work when I do. Is there a way to learn these basics? I'm not confused about the actual course content rather about where to actually code and how to run the code successfully.