1. Getting set up

A list of things to do and think about before starting with the course.

Goal

Prepare a common ground for the course, both in terms of necessary prerequisites (programs) installed and general ideas about what counts when actually developing software – with particular focus on science, reliability, and reproducibility.

• 1.1. Why Python?
• 1.2. Python 2 or 3?
  • 1.2.1. Python 2 end of life
  • 1.2.2. But I have old Python 2 code
• 1.3. Installing the necessary prerequisites
  • 1.3.1. Python
  • 1.3.2. Virtual environments
  • 1.3.3. Version control system (VCS): git
  • 1.3.4. IDE: PyCharm
• 1.4. Virtual environments
  • 1.4.1. Creating virtual environments
  • 1.4.2. Activating and deactivating virtual environments
  • 1.4.3. Virtual environments and PyCharm
• 1.5. Installing packages
  • 1.5.1. Don’t install packages globally
  • 1.5.2. Install a package
  • 1.5.3. Update a package
• 1.6. Editor/IDE
  • 1.6.1. Reasons to carefully choose your editor/IDE
  • 1.6.2. Criteria for a good editor/IDE
  • 1.6.3. Introducing PyCharm
  • 1.6.4. A word on Spyder
• 1.7. Code formatting and documentation
• 1.8. The Zen of Python