Essential Software Engineering for Researchers: Setup

Completing this course requires you to have access to computer with some software prerequisites installed. This course is currently being delivered remotely so please make sure you have access to a suitable computer. All attendees should download install the applications Conda, Visual Studio Code and Git.

Important!

Make sure that you have the most recent versions of Conda and VSCode. Some features used in this lesson will not work with older versions.

Conda

Conda is a Python distribution and package manager. We use both features to provide the version of Python that is used in these materials and to setup self-contained environments.

You can choose to install the full version of anaconda or the more minimal miniconda. Either is suitable but make sure to choose the Python 3.* version. If prompted, choose to install only for your user account and do not install PyCharm.

To test that the installation was successful follow the instructions for your operating system below.

Windows

# conda environments:
#
base                  *  C:\Users\ccaveayl\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\

Mac and Linux

# conda environments:
#
base                  *  /home/ccaveayl/anaconda3

Visual Studio Code

This course will use Visual Studio (VS) Code as an integrated development environment (IDE). You may already have a preferred IDE that you use regularly, however we strongly suggest that you use VS Code for this course and afterwards replicate the setup as you choose. If you already have VS Code installed please make sure it is updated to the latest version.

To install VS Code follow the instructions here.

You should then be able to launch VS Code and see something like: Screenshot of VS code