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Toolkit

Everything you install, configure, and refresh before Week 1. Budget three hours, do it in one sitting if you can, and you will not think about tooling again for the rest of the semester.

Do this in the first days

Week 1 assumes a working environment and a GitHub account you can push to. Setting up during the first lab means you spend that lab on installers instead of on your project.

The path

flowchart LR
    A["<b>1</b><br/>Environment"] --> B["<b>2</b><br/>Git & GitHub"]
    B --> C["<b>3</b><br/>VS Code & Jupyter"]
    C --> D["<b>4</b><br/>Python"]
    D --> E["<b>5</b><br/>NumPy & pandas"]
    E --> F["<b>6</b><br/>Conventions"]
    F --> W["Week 1"]

Pages one to three are installation and configuration, in order. Pages four and five are refreshers you can skim or skip depending on how rusty you feel. Page six is the set of house rules every project follows, and it is the one to read carefully.

Setup

  • 1. Environment setup

    Python, virtual environments, and the libraries this course runs on. Ends with a script that verifies the whole thing.

    45 minutes

    Start here

  • 2. Git & GitHub

    Version control, authentication that actually works, and the daily commit loop. Every project is submitted as a repository.

    60 minutes

    Set up Git

  • 3. VS Code & Jupyter

    Editor, extensions, notebooks, and the interpreter setting that causes most import errors when it is wrong.

    45 minutes

    Set up the editor

Refreshers

  • 4. Python refresher

    The subset of Python this course leans on, plus the handful of traps that reliably cost people an afternoon.

    30 minutes, skimmable

    Refresh Python

  • 5. NumPy & pandas refresher

    Arrays, shapes, dataframes, grouping, joining, and the two warnings everyone hits. Where most of your time will go.

    40 minutes

    Refresh pandas

House rules

  • 6. Project repo conventions

    The folder structure, naming, seeds, and README standard that every submitted project follows. Part of every rubric, so read this one properly.

    20 minutes

    Read the conventions

Ready for Week 1?

  • python --version shows 3.10 or higher
  • A virtual environment activates and check_setup.py reports everything installed
  • I can push a commit to a GitHub repository from my machine
  • VS Code opens my project folder and uses the .venv interpreter
  • A notebook runs a pandas cell without an import error
  • I know why data/raw/ never gets committed

All six ticked means you are done here.

Something not working?

Each page has a Common problems section covering the errors that come up most. If you are still stuck after twenty minutes, ask in the course channel rather than alone. Your question is almost certainly someone else's too, and the twenty-minute rule applies from day one.

Next: Week 1, Problem framing and baselines