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Python installation

Python may be installed on your system already. However, we will be using the Anaconda distribution of python. To get this, you go to the page below (changing the operating system if necessary) and download the python 3 version.

https://www.anaconda.com/download/

The anaconda installer may ask your permission to do various things such as appending to your .bashrc file during installation. You can agree to all the points it asks.

All of the commands listed below occur in the terminal (mac/unix) or the Anaconda prompt (windows), rather than inside python.

For mac/linux you need to start a new terminal session (mac/linux) once Anaconda is installed. Enter

conda info

to check that conda is available.

In windows you need to run all commands in the Anaconda prompt (search for Anaconda from the Start menu).

Virtual environment

It is good programming practice to create 'virtual environments' on your machine. A virtual environment is like a 'walled-off' installation of a program on your machine. Using a virtual environment lets you play around with different installation set-ups on the same machine (similar to having different versions of matlab on the same machine).

For this workshop, we will create a virtual environment called 'work3' that has the packages that we need for the workshop installed.

You can create this environment using the conda virtual environment manager by running the following command in the terminal (mac/linux) or the Anaconda prompt (windows):

conda create -n work3 python=3.6.1 ipython jupyter scipy numba xarray dask holoviews bokeh seaborn

This command 1) creates an environment called 'work3', 2) sets python 3.6.1 as the python version and then 3) installs the packages listed from ipython:seaborn.

You can then 'activate' (switch-to) this virtual environment with the command:

source activate work3

or in windows

activate work3

You should see 'work3' now appearing at the start of the command prompt.

You need to activate the work3 environment when you load the jupyter notebooks.

You can deactivate and return to your root environment with the command:

source deactivate work3

or in windows:

deactivate work3

ipython kernel

We will be using interactive jupyter notebooks in the workshop.
You can make sure that the notebook sees the python installation in the work3 virtual environment.
You do this with the command

python -m ipykernel install --user --name work3 --display-name "work3"

Tutorial materials

Once you have your virtual environment set up, you can download the tutorial materials.

Downloading the materials

In your browser, go to this page: https://github.com/braaannigan/climate_python_intro and click on the green clone or download button.

Option 1: git clone

If you want to use git then you can simply clone the repository to the current directory in the command line by running:

git clone https://github.com/braaannigan/climate_python_intro.git

Options 2: downloading

If you don't want to use git, then you can download the material. First, create a directory called climate_python_intro for the workshop material.

If you are using mac or linux: click the 'copy to clipboard' button on the pop-up box on the website to copy the address; Navigate to your workshop directory in the terminal.
and in your terminal run the command git clone

If git clone doesn't work then follow the windows instructions below.

If you are using windows: Click on the green clone or download button. Click on "download zip" at the bottom of the pop-up box. Unzip the file into your workshop directory

Opening the materials

Once you have cloned/downloaded the materials, you can open them. Navigate to your new climate_python_intro directory.
Open a jupyter notebook in that directory by running

jupyter notebook

in the command line. If you are asked to specify a kernel, make sure that you choose work3. Check that you can open the pandas_1.ipynb file and do the first import statements. If you have problems and google can't solve them, then let me know.