Setting_up_your_Python_Environments

Setting up your Python Environments

May 20, 2021

1 Getting Started Let’s start by installing Anaconda , Python’s leading environment and package manager. For the purposes of this course, the Anaconda Individual Edition, which is offered free of charge, is more than enough. With Anaconda, you will be easily able to install all of the packages and libraries we will use in the course. Additionally, Anaconda comes packed with useful software such as Jupyter (which this document was written on), Spyder, VS Code and more. For this class, we will be using Jupyter and an IDE of your choice. IDE stands for Integrated Development Editor and is a software which helps increase productivity during coding. You will do well to choose a good IDE early on because it helps with auto-complete and the highlighting of syntax and style errors. My personal go-to IDE for Python is PyCharm, which you can download together with Anaconda below. 1.0.1 Installation of Anaconda For Windows users, Please navigate to this webpage and follow the instructions on the page. For Mac users, please navigate to this webpage instead. To verify your installation was successful, please navigate to the directory where you installed Anaconda and launch Anaconda Navigator, which looks like the image below. From the list of software, please run Notebook . If the software runs successfully, the installation was successful.

1

1.0.2 Testing your installation If you are able to run the following program in a cell on your Jupyter Notebook, you can be fairly certain that you’re good to go. [12]: import pandas as pd import numpy as np

np.random.seed(0) random_list = np.random.randn(5, 2) random_df = pd.DataFrame(random_list, columns=["RV 1", "RV2"]) random_df

[12]:

RV 1 RV2 0 1.764052 0.400157 1 0.978738 2.240893 2 1.867558 -0.977278 3 0.950088 -0.151357 4 -0.103219 0.410599

2