Integrated Development Environment Python
Integrated Development Environment Python
Anaconda tool collection. An IDE is a special kind of application that makes writing, testing, and
debugging code significantly easier.
A vast number of other tools are available for you to use when writing Python applications. This book
doesn’t tell you much about them because Anaconda performs every task needed and it’s readily
available free of charge. However, as your skills increase, you might find the features in other tools such
as Komodo Edit.
IDEs vary greatly in the level and kind of intelligence they provide, which is why so many IDEs exist. You
may find the level of help obtained from one IDE to be insufficient to your needs, but another IDE hovers
over you like a mother hen. Every developer has different needs and, therefore, different IDE
requirements. The point is to obtain an IDE that helps you write clean, efficient code quickly and easily.
As mentioned in the previous section, Anaconda doesn’t come with your Python installation. You can
follow the essential book examples using IDLE if you’d rather, but you really do want to try Anaconda if
possible. With this in mind, the following sections help you obtain and install Anaconda on the three
major platforms supported by this book.
This book uses Anaconda version 4.4.0, which supports Python 3.6.2. If you don’t use this version of
Anaconda, you may find that some examples don’t work well and that what you see on your screen
doesn’t match what you see in the book, even if you’re working with Windows. The screenshots in this
book are taken using a Windows 64-bit system, but they should be very close to what you see on other
platforms when you use Anaconda 4.4.0.
https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/
download archive
The following sections show how to work with Jupyter Notebook, the name of the Anaconda IDE. These
sections emphasize the capability to manage application code, including importing the downloadable
source and exporting your amazing applications to show friends.
The code you create and use in this book will reside in a repository on your hard drive. Think of a
repository as a kind of filing cabinet where you put your code. Notebook opens a drawer, takes out the
folder, and shows the code to you. You can modify it, run individual examples within the folder, add new
examples, and simply interact with your code in a natural manner. The following sections get you
started with Notebook so that you can see how this whole repository concept works.