Python Interpreter

To run your Python programs, you need a Python interpreter. There are different versions of the Python interpreter; any recent enough version will be sufficient for the purposes of this course. Just make sure to install one that is version 3.11 or higher and add some packages used during the course.

Installing Python

The installation of Python depends slightly on your operating system:

You will most likely already have it installed

For this course, you do not need to install Python with other distributions like Anaconda or Spyder. In fact, I recommend that you do not.

Once you have Python installed, verify that it works well from your terminal application:

TODO: add link to terminal course

• Open a terminal (see the course The Terminal (/terminal/index.html) for more information).
• Run the command python or python3 or something like python3.11.
• Verify that the command loads the version of Python you installed.
• Exit the interpreter with the command exit().

Installing additional packages

Now it is advisable to add some additional packages that we will use during the course: These are yogi (a package to simplify data reading), numpy (a package for working with vectors), and mypy (a tool to find errors in programs). To do this, run

pip install yogi numpy mypy

Instead of pip, you might need to use pip3 or pip3.11 (usually the pattern matches the python command).

Verify that they have been installed correctly:

If the imports do not complain, everything has gone well.

Jordi Petit
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