Starting out right with Python

If you're new to python or you don't program in python as often as you'd like to, it's key to start off by setting up your environment. Make sure you install a virtual environment tool. I like to use virtualenvwrapper. Virtualenvwrapper helps keep your pip installs clean and separate. It's super easy to set up and use.

$ pip install virtualenvwrapper

That's all you need to do for installation, simple. Once you have it installed you need to configure it. I work on a mac and on the terminal in linux environments. I normally use a projects folder and under that a python-projects folder. If you don't have a preference, go ahead and follow suit.

$ mkdir -p ~/projects/python-projects

Now you can go ahead and update your bashrc or your bash_profile depending on your preferences.

$ echo "source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile

$ echo "export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/projects/python-projects" >> ~/.bash_profile 

$ source ~/.bash_profile

Once that's done you can start using virtualenvwrapper.

$ mkvirtualenv sample

$ workon sample 

The first command will create a new virtual environment directory e.g. $HOME/projects/python-projects/sample. Now if you run any pip installs, the libraries and binaries will be in that directory and will not pollute any of your core system libraries. This will help you in the future, especially if you decide to share your code because all of your pip dependencies can now be easily listed e.g.

$ pip list --format columns

That's it. Happy python coding.