Installing Python

Installing Anaconda

Anaconda is a python distribution that includes most of the neccessary python libraries we will be using in this course. Installing anaconda is straight forward. Visit the following link to download and install the version that matches your operating system.

Download Anaconda

A step by step instruction for each operating system can be found here

Installing Visual Studio Code

We highly recommend you install Visual Studio Code editor for all python related projects.

Download VS Code

Once installed, vs code should automatically detect and activate anaconda. To confirm this you can check for (base) prefaced to the prompt in the inbuilt terminal ( ctrl + `)

(base) user@pc:~$

For windows you might need to select python interpreter manually. To do this, press ctrl + shift + p and type Python: Select Interpreter and select the anaconda interpreter from the list. If you do not see this option ensure the python extension is installed in VS Code.

Restart VS Code and run

conda activate

Set up a conda environment

In vs code terminal create a conda environment
```
conda create -n camp2026
```
Activate the environment
```
conda activate camp2026
```
The prompt should change to:
```
(camp2026) user@pc:~$
```

Install the scientific packages

conda install numpy scipy matplotlib pandas seaborn