catycaldwell/git-your-python-booty

Python Bootcamp

Welcome to Women Who Code's: Introduction to Python Workshop

sponsored by Northeastern University, Seattle, WA

The materials collected in this repository were adapted by Katherine Porterfield and Brenda Praggastis from a workshop developed by Caroline Harbitz (https://github.com/cterp) and Gina Schmalzle (https://github.com/ginaschmalzle). Their original repository may be found at: https://github.com/ginaschmalzle/git-your-python-booty.git. Enjoy!

This repository contains all the information you need to participate in the workshop. It contains interactive python notebooks and tutorials, as well as some practice assignments.

##Directions to download this repository:

You can download this repository to your local machine by clicking the green Clone or Download button on this webpage then click Download Zip. Or, if you want to impress your friends you can do it this way:

1. Open a terminal
2. Make sure you have git installed. You can check by typing which git at the terminal prompt. If a path appears continue to step 4.
3. Install git (https://git-scm.com/book/en/v1/Getting-Started-Installing-Git). If you are on a mac, we recommend using homebrew (http://brew.sh/) to install git.
4. In your working directory type: git clone https://github.com/bpraggastis/git-your-python-booty.git

Interested in using git?

This is a simple explanation of some of the most common commands:

http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/

Running the Code

You will need to download some additional modules for this workshop.

pip

The easiest python package management system to use is pip. If you do not have pip, you can install pip using easy_install. Here are the steps:

1. Check to see if you have pip. If a path is returned you have pip; continue to the 'Install other requirements and launch Jupyter' section. If not, continue to step 2.

   which pip

2. Check to see if you have easy_install:

   which easy_install

If a path is returned type:

easy_install pip

Install other requirements and launch Jupyter

Once you have pip installed move to your cloned directory and type:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Install ggplot

pip install ggplot

To start your session type:

jupyter notebook

Extra Credit

Virtual Environments

Virtual environment is a tool that keeps the modules required by different projects in separate places.

Why is this important?

Your computer probably has several versions of python on it, and the python you are running is determined by your path. Also, there are likely several versions of python's installation tool pip on your machine, and the pip you are using may not be installing the packages you want to the python you intended. To avoid these complications, and to help contain only the modules you need for your specified project, you can use virtual environments.

Get virtualenv

In your working directory, install virtualenv to your default python:

cd working_dir    # cd into your working directory
pip install virtualenv

How to Make a Virtual Environment

The following command creates a virtual environment:

virtualenv env    # this command creates your virtual environment, complete with its own version of python  

How to Use your New Python

This command tells your computer to use the version of python you just created:

source env/bin/activate

Use Your New pip to Install Your Requirements

Now that you're pointed to the new python environment, install all of your requirements for this project:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Updating Your Requirements

If in the future you add or remove modules to your virtual environment, you can list them in a requirements file. The 'pip freeze' command will list your requirements along with the version. To put All of Your Requirements into a Requirements file type:

pip freeze > requirements.txt

For more information on virtual environments, and some tools to simplify them, see http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/virtualenvs/