Installing Programs

What do we need installed on our computers?

Key Terms

• Anaconda: The distribution of data science tools and languages we will use for this course.

• Anaconda Navigator: The Desktop graphical user interface allowing us to launch programs like Jupyter Notebook

Now that we understand hot the command line works, lets install the required program for this course. Luckily for us, Anaconda makes this process fairly simple. Instead of requiring multiple downloads for the languages and packages we'll need later on, Anaconda lets us clump these all together in a single download process.

To download Anaconda, visit the installation page on their website. Scroll down until you find the download link matching your OS (Mac, Windows, or LInux). Follow the installation process as prompted by your machine. You should be fine with the default checkboxes after each "next" of the download procedure.

After finishing the installation process, Python should be ready to use on your computer. However, the benefit of Anaconda isn't solely in its inclusion of Python, but its inclusion of all of the other packages and python-extensions it offers! Try navigating in your search bar to the Anaconda Navigator. The Anaconda Navigator is a recent tool that lets users easily view all of the programs and packages within Anaconda we can use for Data Science. The "Home section" should show apps like Jupyter Notebook, which we will use for a majority of this course. Instead of having to use the command line each time you want to launch one of these applications, we can easily navigate by clicking them here.

Furthermore, if we navigate to the "Learning" page on the left, we can see all of the data science packages we can easily install. The use of these packages will be fundamental to the programming you do in this course, so make sure to take note of this page when we get to later sections in the text.

Note: The use of the Anaconda Navigator is not required in this course. You will soon learn how to access applications like the Jupyter notebook through the command line. The Anaconda Navigator is a newer feature designed to help people who prefer a more visual approach.