Introduction to Programming for Public Policy (30550)

Mac Install Instructions

Terminal

You will need to have a Terminal set up on your computer. If you’re running a Mac, it is installed. Just Spotlight search for ‘Terminal.’ Easy!

Python

Download the Python 3.6, 64-bit Anaconda, and install it on your computer.

• The Graphical User Interface (GUI) installer is easier – please use it.
• It may ask for your business email – you can ignore it.)
• If the installer asks whether or not it can edit your .bashrc, the answer is yes.
• When the install is complete, open Terminal and type python, then hit <Enter>. It should read Python 3.5.2 |Anaconda... a new command prompt. You can test it out (1 + 1, then <Enter>) and quit (quit() or ctrl+D on a Mac).

You’re done with the python part!

Atom Text Editor

I encourage you to use Atom as a text editor; it provides syntax highlighting that you will find useful. The Download and installation should be trivial. If you want, you can delete it when you’re done.

• Installing a “de-linter” to find bugs in your code will help a lot. Go to settings (⌘,) and click on “Install.” Then search for “linter-pylint” and install it with all of the dependencies that come up. Now whenever you save a python file, it will (partially!!) check your work!
• As an alternative, you may sometimes wantto use Jupyter notebooks or Spyder. Both of these come with your Anaconda installation.
• Atom requires OS X 10.8 or later. For 10.6 or 10.7, try Sublime or TextWrangler (4.5.12).

GitHub

Create a student GitHub account, or just a standard GitHub account. You will use this account to push (submit) all of your work. Download and install git.

• If your OS is more than five years old (10.7 or 10.8), you may need to get your git from Sourceforge; search for version git-2.3.5-intel-universal-snow-leopard.dmg. If you did the Window Cygwin setup, it should have included git.

• Tell GitHub who you are, by executing the running the following commands, with appropriate substitutions from the command line (Terminal):

  git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"