Basic Python Tutorial
It is strongly recommended that you first finish this tutorial. I will be using Python version 3.6 , hence for convenience, you are expected to install Python version3.6 on your sytem. The walkthrough for the installation is platform specific, you should refer to the official Python Website. Once you’re sure that you installed the correct python version on your system CD to correspnding directory for COMP4360 class you created by using whichever name you want to use. Here I preferred COMP4360 for convenience.
cd COMP4360
It is very common to use virtual environments for specific tasks. It helps you to create and work on a virtual environment specifically tailored for one specific task. It includes a python instance and keeps the core installation isolated. This makes it possible to install and try different python packages without compromising the core installation. Running the following command will create a virtual environment hosted in venv directory. It is a common practice to name the directory as venv.
virtualenv -p python3.6 venv
“-p python3.6” option ensures that you create the virtual environment by using python3.6 interpreter. Once you create virtual instance you can work on it by simply running the following command in the terminal.
source venv/bin/activate
In python installations pip installer comes as dafault. It is straightforward to install a package by using pip. In this class you will need a couple of libraries installed to your system. It is possible to install them one by one but more convenient way is to install them by using a requirements.txt file (right click to download).
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
We will also extensively use pillow,matplotlib and numpy in this course. You can refer to the documents pages of these libraries for more information. During the course necessary and sufficient information will be given to you.
Jupyter is another common way to interpret with python scripts easily. You can edit, modify and run python scripts within your browser. Contemporary works, especially on machine learning etc., are mostly displayed in jupyter environment. In this course we will NOT be relying on jupyter but I strongly recommend you to install and play with and work on this environment. See iPython Tutorial for further details.
It is possible to stop virtual environment with the following command
deactivate
I recommend you to check the documentation pages for the libraries given above. You can start with the following tutorials. It is important for you to understand why and where we do use libraries, i.e. pillow, numpy and matplotlib.