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STAT 430 - Fall 2021

Resources

1. Setup for Mac OS X

1.1 Installing Python

You will need Python 3.6 (or later). We will first check if you have Python already and install it if you don’t already have it.

a. Checking for existing Python

  • Open up your command prompt.
  • Type python --version and press Enter.
    • If you see Python 3.8.5 (or similar), you are all set – no need to install Python!
    • If you see an error or Python 2.7, we will install it now!

b. Installing Python

  • Visit https://conda.io/miniconda.html to get Miniconda, a light-weight version of the python programming language
  • Download the latest Mac OS X, 64-bit bash installer for the latest version of Python (eg: 3.8).
  • Open up your command prompt and run the script you downloaded by running the following:
    cd Downloads
    bash Miniconda3-latest-MacOSX-x86_64.sh
  • You will need to press q to exit the license screen and all default options are fine.
  • Restart your terminal

1.2 Installing git

Any modern version of git works. We will first check if you have git and install it if you don’t already have it.

a. Checking for git

  • Open up your command prompt.
  • Type git --version and press Enter.
    • If you see git version ... (or similar), you are all set – no need to install git!
    • If you see an error, we will install it now!

b. Installing git

  • Visit https://git-scm.com/downloads to get git, a distributed version control system/repository tool
  • Download and install the latest Mac OS X installer.
  • After the install finishes, verify it installed by following the steps above.

2. Setup for Windows

2.1 Installing Python

You will need Python 3.6 (or later). We will first check if you have Python already and install it if you don’t already have it.

a. Checking for existing Python

  • Open up your command prompt.
  • Type python --version and press Enter.
    • If you see Python 3.8.5 (or similar), you are all set – no need to install Python. (Skip to the git section.)
    • If you see ‘python’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file., install it now:

b. Installing Python

  • Visit https://conda.io/miniconda.html to get Miniconda, a light-weight version of the python programming language
  • Download and install the latest Windows, 64-bit installer for the latest version of Python (eg: 3.8).
  • After the install finishes, exit your command prompt.
  • Launch Anaconda Prompt (search for it in the search bar if you don’t know where to find it), then type python --version and press Enter.

2.2 Installing git

Any modern version of git works. We will first check if you have git and install it if you don’t already have it.

a. Checking for git

  • Open up your command prompt.
  • Type git --version and press Enter.
    • If you see git version ... (or similar), you are all set – no need to install git! (You’re done!)
    • If you see ‘git’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file., install it now:

b. Installing git

  • Visit https://git-scm.com/downloads to get git, a distributed version control system/repository tool
  • Download and install the latest Windows installer.
  • After the install finishes, exit your command prompt, re-launch it, and verify it installed by following the steps above.

3. Command Line Interface

If you think about how you usually use a computer, you probably navigate to a file by clicking on directories and open a program or file by double clicking on them. When you are programming a computer, you often need to run programs and send them options, called arguments, which is nearly impossible to do with only a click.

Because of this, every operating system contains a Command Line Interface (CLI) that lets you interact with your computer using a keyboard. You can do everything you already do on a computer via the command line, but you can also do a whole lot more!

3.1. Windows: Opening your command line

  • Press [Windows Key] to bring up the “Windows menu”
  • Type: Anaconda Prompt
  • Press [Enter]
  • A black box titled “Anaconda Prompt” will open

3.2. Mac OS X: Opening your command line

  • Press [Command]+[Space] to open Spotlight, or open up Spotlight or App Launcher
  • Type: Terminal
  • Press [Enter]
  • A white box titled “Terminal” will open

3.3. Command prompt

Both command line tools start every line with a prompt that shows the current working directory of the command line tool. By default, both Windows and Mac starts you off in the base folder for your user account. The syntax varies only slightly between the two (assuming a user named Karle), so the initial prompt should be one of the following:

  • Windows: C:\Users\hknguyen\>
  • OS X: hknguyen-MacBook-Pro:~ hknguyen$

a. Current working directory

When using the command line, you are always “inside” of one specific folder (much like when you double-click a folder you see the contents of everything in that folder and only that folder). The current folder that your command line tool is in is referred to as the current working directory.

In our class, we recommend that you work within a directory called stat430 on your desktop. In order to navigate to that directory, we need to first navigate to your Desktop and then navigate to the stat430 directory. Both of these things can be done with the cd command (cd for “change directory”):

cd Desktop
cd stat430

You can visually verify that you are now in your Stat 430 directory by looking at the prompt:

  • Windows: C:\Users\hknguyen\Desktop\stat430>
  • OS X: hknguyen-MacBook-Pro:~ stat430$

b. Useful Command: Listing Files

When using a command line tool, you often want to know what files are in your current working directory. To list all files in the current directory:

  • Windows: dir
  • OS X: ls

c. Useful Command: Moving Up a Directory

In addition to moving “forward” or “deeper” into your directories, the special cd .. will change your directory “up” one directory.

  • Moves into stat430 from your Desktop (one level deeper): cd stat430
  • Moves back to your Desktop from stat430 (one level shallower): cd ..

Modified from Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider & Karle Flanagan’s STAT 107 - Fall 2019 guide with permission.