Basic preparations for the first session

To participate at the first session you must prepare your system with some basic installations.

Install a python interpreter

I recommend that you choose between two different python installations: ^1

Python from python.org: https://www.python.org/downloads/

If you install python from python.org you will the basic python interpreter. This is sufficient for learning the python language but it has no pre-installed modules for Data Science or Machine Learning. You can install the needed modules afterwards if needed, but they are not included.

Anaconda python: https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install/

If you want to have a python installation with a lot of additional features (Data Science, Machine Learning, etc.) I recommend installing the anaconda package.

The anaconda package uses more disk space but delivers a lot of advanced modules "out of the box". Pythonistas also speak from "batteries included" for such cases.

I will only talk about python 3, so don't use "old" python 2 interpreters.

TLDR: If you just want to learn the python language and have limited disk space use the interpreter from python.org, if you don't mind big installation and "want it all": use anaconda.

^1: There are a lot of other python interpreters like IronPython, Jython, ... but the most common interpreter is the one from python.org. I won't talk about the others.

After installing the interpreter you can check the python version.

• start a command line (e.g. bash for unix systems or a cmd.exe command line for windows)
• type in `python --version` witout the quotes
• You should see a version output like this: "Python 3.8.3"

Install an Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

I recommend one of these two IDEs:

• Visual Studio Code with the python extension https://code.visualstudio.com/Download
• PyCharm Community: https://www.jetbrains.com/de-de/pycharm/download/#section=linux