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Preparation for CUCaTS coding workshop

Installing Python

Python is both a programming language and a piece of software. There are two popular versions of Python: Python 2 and Python 3. We are going to be using Python 3, which is more modern.

It will save time if you can install Python 3 on your laptop before the workshop - instructions on how to do so follow.

Windows

  • Download the Windows x86-64 MSI installer for 64 bit Windows or Windows x86 MSI installer for 32 bit Windows. If in doubt, choose 32 bit.
    • The choice between 64 and 32 bit only matters if you want to install libraries in the future, as you will need to install the same version as your Python version.
  • Run it and follow instructions.
  • Choose add python.exe to path so that you can run it from the command line with python

Remember to add python.exe to path for easier access

  • To test if your installation is successful, you can press windows + R, type cmd and press enter to launch the command prompt (a black box into which you can type commands). Then type python and press enter. The Python console should start - you should see something like:
Python 3.4.2 (default, Dec 27 2014, 13:16:08) 
[Something] on Windows
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

You can then close the window.

  • If you see Python 2.7, then start with py -3 instead.

Mac

  • For OS X 10.6 and above, Download and run this.
  • Open your terminal by pressing cmd + space and entering terminal. Type python3. (Don't include the full stop.)

Linux

  • Open a terminal and install Python 3 using your package manager. For example, sudo apt-get install python3 or sudo yum install python3.

Installing the package installer (Optional)

This is not necessary for the workshop. But if you want to use Python in the future, this might come in handy.

Python comes with many useful libraries which you can install easily with a package manager. Here we will provide instructions for installing pip.

Windows

  • The Python 3 installer installs pip by default. You can check that pip is installed by entering pip --version or py -3 -m pip --version in your command prompt. If the first command gives you an error but the second one works, you might want to update pip by entering py -3 -m pip install --upgrade pip. Then pip --version should work.
  • If pip is not installed, you can install it like so:
    • Download the installer script and save it somewhere (e.g. your desktop).
    • Browse to the location where you saved the installer. Then hold down shift and right click on an empty space in your file explorer, and select Open command window here.
    • Type py get-pip.py and press enter.

Mac and Linux

  • Check if you have pip installed: open your terminal and type pip or python3 -m pip. If you don't get an error, then pip is already installed.
  • If you don't have pip, you can run the following command which is a script to download the installer and installing it.
    • curl -OL https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py && python3 get-pip.py
    • If it complains about permission denied, run sudo python3 get-pip.py

Using pip (Optional)

You can install packages by typing pip install <package-name>. For example, if we wanted plotting functionalities, we could install matplotlib by typing pip install matplotlib.