Description

Introduction
This document will walk through setting up your local development environment or a virtual machine. Setting up your environment will ensure that you have an appropriate version of python installed along with the necessary libraries used in this course. If you are totally new to Python, you can refer to https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html to understand the basics of Python. All the problem sets and projects in this course are designed to use Python 3, and we recommend Python 3.9. The autograder tool, Gradescope, uses at least version 3.9.6. If you are comfortable setting up your environment on your own, feel free to reference the yaml file for the necessary packages to install.
Download Setup files
On Canvas, click on Files in the left side menu, select Environment Setup, and download cs7638_env_setup.pdf (this file), rait_env.yml, and test_env_setup.py.
Environment setup
1. Conda: Conda is an open source package and environment management system. We recommend using Conda since it makes it easy to install and manage different versions of libraries without messing up other environments. Install Miniconda https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html. Download the latest python version available. You are welcome to use Anaconda instead of Miniconda, see this page for more details on the differences:
3. Create a conda environment by running the following command in the “Conda Prompt” (Windows) or Terminal (MacOS/Linux):
conda env create -f rait_env.yml
Check your installation
You can run the script test_env_setup.py to verify that you have everything installed correctly. It is a simple script that checks the following:
• installed python version
• installed necessary libraries
• unicode characters display correctly (arrows helpful for debugging later in the course)
• GUI library tkinter properly working
You can run it by: python test_env_setup.py
Installation Troubleshooting
• Arrows not displaying
– Windows users should first try to explicitly select a font that can display the characters by: click icon in the top left of the command window > Properties > Font [tab] > Select MS Gothic > OK
– Mac & Linux: it is likely the case that you do not have a font on your machine that is able to display these specific unicode characters. You can install the symbola font which is able to display these characters. (Mac: You can download the font here or find it through a google search).
Linux: sudo apt install fonts-symbola
Mac: How to install a font on Mac
Windows: How to install a font on Windows
• Tkinter not working correctly on Mac
Mac: brew install python-tk@3.9
RAIT Virtual Machine Image
PyCharm Setup
Please note that the instructions below are for high-level guidance specific to Linux for PyCharm Professional
1. Download and setup PyCharm https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/download.
2. Open the directory student_env_setup in PyCharm https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/openingreopening-and-closing-projects.html#opening_projects.
3. Configure PyCharm to use the conda environment created above https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/condasupport-creating-conda-virtual-environment.html. a: Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the project Settings/Preferences.
b. In the Settings/Preferences dialog, select Project <project name> | Python Interpreter. Click the icon next to the Python Interpreter dropdown and select Add.
c. In the left-hand pane of the Add Python Interpreter dialog, select Conda Environment.d. Select Existing Environment.
e. Click Select an interpreter and specify a path to the Conda executable in your file system. To see the path of the conda environment in your system, run the command conda info –envs and note the path of the rait_env. In the Interpreter path on PyCharm, add that path to the rait_env environment, followed by bin/python. An example path would be
/home/user/anaconda3/envs/rait_env/bin/python.
f. Select the checkbox Make available to all projects
g. Apply the changes.
4. Now, to run the file test_env_setup.py, right click on it in the Project window in the left and select Run.