How to Properly Install Python
Many people who have installed Python or are yet to do so may be flustered by all the different version and the amount of different IDE’s and text editors. This is a short and straight to the point article that aims to aid you in setting up your Python development environment.
1. Installing Python
Python is a commonly used programming language that is know for its simple but powerful syntax and its plethora of varying libraries to help you get stared with a project.
Although we can install python from the official website(https://www.python.org/downloads/), we should use a version manager called Anaconda. This software allows us to install many different versions of Python all the way from 2.7 to 3.8. This makes sure that our different libraries that we install don’t get mixed up. This process prevents issues that might occur when developing code. We can install Anaconda from their website: https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual. After it install you will see a new app on your device. I am using a Windows 10 device, but this should be similar for other MacOS and Linux. After finishing installing the app suite, you should have a folder called Anaconda.
Now navigate to Anaconda Prompt. After the new Prompt window has opened, we will create a new virtual environment. Although this may seem tedious, this will save you lots of time in the future. Enter the command: conda create -n envName python=3.8 . This command is creating a new python environment with the name envName and with a Python version of 3.8. Now let’s activate this environment with the activate envName . Now we should get an IDE.
There are many IDEs. Find the one you work best with.
I personally use Visual Studio code(VSCode) because it works well and has many different tools to make me more productive. This tutorial will go over VSCode’s installation and setup. We can download VSCode from https://code.visualstudio.com/download and then after finishing the setup wizard and installing we will setup Python for VSCode.
Go to the extensions page:
Search “Python” and then install the add-on made by Microsoft. Now Python should work. Create a new file in VSCode and call it name.py make sure to have the .py extension.
Now lets code add some basic code: print(“This article is cool”) lets try to execute the code. Click the green play button on the top right corner.
If the code executes and prints: This article is cool then you have setup your python development environment properly. If you have any issues, please feel free to comment on this article and I will help you or you can search google for your issue. Thanks for reading!
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