gfvalvo:
Worse still, it looks like you need to mess around with a Command Line Interface and manually edit .ini files. This is 2017, not 1977.
No, it is a very active platform that has been improved a shit ton since that demo.
- install ATOM (which is rapidly becoming one of the best development environments due to all of its support, plus nice GitHub integration)
- install the Packages
that's it. I'm on a mac so it may be a whole bunch easier than if you are using a Windows machine. 
install whatever other packages you want (there are thousands) that help you the most.
Seriously worth the 5 mins to get it running.