A.3 Anaconda and Spyder
313
As alternatives to installing the software on your own laptop, you may:
1. Use a computer system at an institution where the software is installed. Such
a system can also be used from your local laptop through remote login over a
network.
2. Use a web service.
A system administrator can take the list of software packages and install the missing
ones on a computer system.
Using a web service is straightforward, but has the disadvantage that you are
constrained by the packages that you are allowed to install on the service. There
are services (at the time of this writing) that suffice for basic scientific Python
programming. However, for more complicated mathematical problems, you will
need more sophisticated packages, more storage and more computer resources,
which means that you will greatly benefit from having Python installed on your
own computer.
A.3 Anaconda and Spyder
Anaconda 15 is a free Python distribution (by Continuum Analytics) with hundreds
of excellent Python packages, as well as Python itself, for doing a wide range of
scientific computations.
The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Spyder comes with Anaconda
and is our recommended tool for writing and running Python programs, unless
you prefer a plain text editor for the writing of programs and a terminal window
(explained below, see Appendix A.4.3) for running them.
A.3.1 Spyder on Mac
Spyder is started by typing spyder in a (new) Terminal application. If you get an
error message unknown locale, you need to type the following line in the Terminal
application, or preferably put the line in your $HOME/.bashrc Unix initialization
file:
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8; export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
A.3.2 Installation of Additional Packages
Anaconda installs the pip tool that is handy for installing additional packages. In a
Terminal application on Mac, or in a PowerShell terminal on Windows, write
Terminal
pip install --user packagename
15 https://www.anaconda.com/distribution.
313
As alternatives to installing the software on your own laptop, you may:
1. Use a computer system at an institution where the software is installed. Such
a system can also be used from your local laptop through remote login over a
network.
2. Use a web service.
A system administrator can take the list of software packages and install the missing
ones on a computer system.
Using a web service is straightforward, but has the disadvantage that you are
constrained by the packages that you are allowed to install on the service. There
are services (at the time of this writing) that suffice for basic scientific Python
programming. However, for more complicated mathematical problems, you will
need more sophisticated packages, more storage and more computer resources,
which means that you will greatly benefit from having Python installed on your
own computer.
A.3 Anaconda and Spyder
Anaconda 15 is a free Python distribution (by Continuum Analytics) with hundreds
of excellent Python packages, as well as Python itself, for doing a wide range of
scientific computations.
The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Spyder comes with Anaconda
and is our recommended tool for writing and running Python programs, unless
you prefer a plain text editor for the writing of programs and a terminal window
(explained below, see Appendix A.4.3) for running them.
A.3.1 Spyder on Mac
Spyder is started by typing spyder in a (new) Terminal application. If you get an
error message unknown locale, you need to type the following line in the Terminal
application, or preferably put the line in your $HOME/.bashrc Unix initialization
file:
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8; export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
A.3.2 Installation of Additional Packages
Anaconda installs the pip tool that is handy for installing additional packages. In a
Terminal application on Mac, or in a PowerShell terminal on Windows, write
Terminal
pip install --user packagename
15 https://www.anaconda.com/distribution.