Python Programming How to Install Your First Environment Setup
Introduction
What is programming with Python? Python is a highly popular, flexible programming language used for most purposes with ease and readability. A lot of newcomers have found it to be an inviting entrance into programming. This tutorial should guide you through the installation and configuration of your very first Python environment, setting you up to program with confidence.
Why Python for Programming?
It is quite a nice language for both beginners and professional programmers. This language is following a fairly simple syntax that makes it easy to read by the reader and easy to write for the writer. There are a thousand domains where the applications of Python exist and become useful- web developing, data science, artificial intelligence, automation, etc. If you want to learn just for fun, or you really mean to start your career, the platform is good: Python.
Setting Up for Getting Started with Python: Checking Your Operating System
Python can be downloaded on nearly any OS. Installation compatibility supports Windows, macOS, and Linux. Make sure to look into the requirements of the operating system first, too. Most computers nowadays use systems that would not cause an issue with the installation of Python.
Python 2 or Python 3?
Python has two versions of its version: Python 2 and Python 3. However, the issue is that Python 2 is becoming quite old, and the contemporary apps have majorly started using Python 3. In this tutorial, we’ll take you through the procedure for installing Python 3, which we recommend to beginners.
Step 1: Installing Python on Your System
Installing Python on Windows
Python website: You need to go to the official Python website at (python.org) and download the latest version of Python 3 that is released to Windows users.
Run installer: Open the downloaded file and check the box that says “Add Python to PATH.”
Follow installation process: Click “Install Now” and wait for it to finish.
Python Installation on mac
Download Python: Open up python.org and download the Python 3 installer for mac.
Run installer: Open the file downloaded and follow instructions.
Check install: open terminal, type python3 –version. The you will see the number of Python versions if you succeed.
Installation of Python on Linux
By Terminal: Most of the computers using Linux have Python installed as a basic programs. Just open Terminal and enter python3 –version check if that is installed
Install if not: If it is not there, then open Terminal and enter into it sudo apt-get install python3 in case of the Ubuntu or Debian operating system.
A Python environment lets you execute your code in a sandboxed space, thus keeping the various library versions organized. Below are the steps to create a minimal environment.
Use the Python Shell Interpreter
Once installed, you can start right away using the python interpreter, from which you can run commands directly.
Open Terminal or Command Prompt: Type python3 (or python on some systems) and then hit Enter.
Run some simple commands Have a go at trying to run something as simplistic as print(\”Hello, World!\”) to make sure your environment is working.
Virtual Environments
A virtual environment is a self-contained Python instance which lets you keep an order in your projects.
Setup a virtual environment: Open Terminal or Command Prompt. Locate the folder where you want to create your project. Type: python3 -m venv myproject
Activate the environment: For Windows: myproject\Scripts\activate For macOS and Linux: source myproject/bin/activate.
Done. Deactivate when you are done: Just type deactivate to leave.
Step 3: Install a Python Code Editor
A code editor is a programming environment that can make your life easier, providing you with handy tools such as syntax highlighting and auto-completion. The choices you might consider installing are:
Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
VS Code is another well-supported code editor for Python, and it’s free, too. You can download it at code.visualstudio.com and install the Python extension for more power.
PyCharm
PyCharm is the Python IDE of choice for big projects. It is free, and the community edition is very suitable for almost all projects a beginner will need.
Step 4: Writing and Running Your First Python Script
You have set up your environment and now your editor. It’s finally time to write a script.
Writing A Simple Python Script
Editor: Use either VS Code or PyCharm for this task.
File New File: Call your file hello.py then type in the following code: print(“Hello, Python!”).
Save the file: Make sure to save it in your project folder.
Running Your Python Script
Open Terminal or Command Prompt: Open Terminal or Command Prompt and navigate to the folder where you saved hello.py.
Run the script: Type the following command to run the script: python3 hello.py
You will see “Hello, Python!” printed on the screen.
Step 5 Installing Python Libraries
The term library is going to come up a lot in the rest of this book. Libraries are a good way to add functionality not natively supported in the language. They also, of course, allow you to do large-scale things like perform data analysis or web development.
Installation with pip
pip is Python’s package manager. Thus, you can easily install libraries you need.
Open Terminal: You can just use pip install library_name with library_name as the name of your desired library.
Test if it installed properly: Just use pip list and you will see a list of libraries installed.
Popular Libraries for Beginners
NumPy: numbers
Pandas: data manipulation
Matplotlib: plots
Step 6: Useful Resources to Learn Python
The most amazing thing about Python is its excellent number of accessible resources for a beginner and a simply phenomenal community.
Free Web Courses
For all of the Internet students out there, here are some free Python courses: Codecademy Coursera Udacity Python Documentation
Official python.org has more-detailed information on features of Python.
Conclusion
What is Python programming? It is a language that is most accessible, so you can learn how to code proficiently easily. Now that you have set up an environment and installed Python by which you will be able to run your very first script, you’re ready to continue further into learning about Python and applying it to your projects.