Local Setup

If you’d like, you can set up a working environment on your own computer. If you would like to use Google Colab instead, then you can skip this article.

To follow along with this course you’ll need an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This is where you’ll be able to write and run all of your code. If you don’t have one already, we recommend installing VSCode.

Python

Once you have your IDE installed, you’ll need to install python on your system. Python’s site should help you download and setup python on your system.

pip vs. conda

Python has many package managers which help you download and use libraries from the web, such as numpy, pandas, and many others which we will cover throughout the course.

pip

If you are using Windows, I’d recommend using pip, which comes preinstalled with Python. To create a new environment with pip:

  1. python -m venv env_name
  2. .\env_name\Scripts\activate

To install packages in your environment, run pip install <package_name>. To deactivate your environment, run deactivate

conda

If you are using MacOS, Anaconda is a very usefull tool for managing installs and environments. It is available on Windows, but I found it to be tough to use as it was not enabled in all terminals. To install Conda:

  1. Install Homebrew (optional, but recommended)
  2. Run the command brew install --cask anaconda to install conda on your system.

To create a new environment, you can use conda create -n env_name python=3.9. To activate your environment, run conda activate env_name. To install packages in your environment, use conda install <package_name>. To deactivate your enviuronment, run conda deactivate.

git

Git is an important way to interact with your files. It is a version control system and is commonly used with Github, a large code storage, sharing, and hosting site. If you don’t already have a Github account, create one now. To get started with git, install and setup using their site.

VSCode has a built-in version control tab that allows you to interact with git and github. For more info, visit their guide.