1. Setting up your Python environment#

This recipe will guide you through setting up a Python environment to kick-start interactive visualizations by creating a dedicated virtual environment. Virtual environments are an essential tool for managing dependencies specific to each project, helping avoid conflicts between packages, as well as ensuring smooth development and reproducibility.

Getting ready#

Make sure you have a Python distribution (preferably 3.10 or higher) in your operating system. You can download it from its official website.

In addition, it would be useful to have an IDE. There are many options in the Python space, but we recommend:

  • Visual Studio Code

  • PyCharm (the Community edition is free and offers great functionality for beginners)

  • Jupyter Notebook

How to do it#

  1. Create a virtual environment ven to start working

python3 -m venv venv

Note that the second venv is the name of your new environment. You can choose any other name that you like but venv is probably the most common one.

This command will create a directory named venv containing the virtual environment in the path from where you are running it. If you want to create it on a different path, you need to specify it by passing the name of the target path after the name of the new environment as follows:

python3 -m venv /path/to/new/virtual/venv

  1. Activate your virtual environment by running

  • On macOS/Linux

$source venv/bin/activatev

  • On Windows

# In cmd.exe
venv\Scripts\activate.bat
# In PowerShell
venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

How it works#

What is a virtual environment and why are we using one?

  • A virtual environment is a semi-isolated Python environment that allows Python users to install and manage packages for use by a particular application or project, rather than being installed system wide. This guarantees that there is no interfering with the behavior of other Python applications running on the same system.

  • venv is the standard tool for creating virtual environments in Python. It has been part of Python since Python 3.3.

There’s more#

Some IDEs have special functionality to help you create and configure virtual environments. For example:

See also