Installing Python

You need to install a Python distribution that contains the scientific libraries scipy, numpy and matplotlib. Therefore, you should have a look at the Scipy install webpage.

We will try to work with Python 3 codes mostly so it is good for you to have Python 3 installed (there are two versions of Python, Python 2 and Python 3, which are not fully compatible).

In order to run scripts, you have several options:

• use the command line and some text editor (mostly Linux and Mac)
• use some simple IDE such as Idle (provided by the standard distribution) or Spyder (friendly under windows for instance)
• use the IPython notebook called Jupyter (for Windows, Mac and Linux) in which you can write text+formula+code+output, as in Mathematica. The notebook is an option to write your reports for Homeworks, together with the usual TeX+Figures

some distributions

• under Mac or Linux, installing from packages should be friendly. Installing Anaconda is also a good option as it contains everything but is heavy.
• under windows, we recommend to install Anaconda, beware that it takes a lot of disk memory (more than a Gbyte). You can select packages.
• under Ubuntu of Linux, an alternative is the lighter version called Installing mini-conda.

learning Python and Numpy

• for French speaking students, you may have a look at the Memento_Python and below, as weel as any introductory course.
• for English speaking students, there are many resources throughout the web: possible ones are
  • Python course
  • Scipy lecture notes