2019 Data Analyst/Scientist

Question

Good afternoon,

I am taking a master in big data and yesterday we started to use Python. I am following the course of this app to develop expertise, but I need some basic questions to be solved.

I have a macOS and in few hours of research I should have been able to understand the best practice to set up my computer.
After a short use of python online:

I downloaded Anaconda to enable Python and its libraries in a very user friendly version;
I installed the Python IDLE in order to have the possibility to work in a proper switch between interactive and script mode;
That's should be all, can somebody confirm this or give his opinion?

I understood on the net that macOS terminal is able to run Python by itself so I would like to know: are the softwares I mentioned before used only for their capabilities to integrate more functions in an extreme user friendly interface?

Of course, I will work mainly from Jupyter Notebook that is the best thing to do to achieve high proficiency in short time, what do you think?

Answer 1

Sounds pretty good.

Afaik Anaconda installs Python and its modules systemwide. So after installing Anaconda you can just use Python on the commandline or for whatever purpose.

Anaconda includes Spyder. I think I would prefer that to IDLE as it is a "real" IDE and offers basic debugging and so on.