1B_Coding_Environments

March 26, 2025

1 Coding Environments

You are welcome to use any coding environment that you like for this tutorial, so if you have prior
experience or a workflow set-up already, feel free to continue to use it. If not, a few suggestions are
listed here:

1.1 Jupyter Notebook (IPython): (Recommended for this class)

IPython is an interactive version of Python that allows users to use a shell to run chunks of Python
code, as opposed to an entire Python script or program. For those familiar with MATLAB or R,
it is very similar to using their console/command line, but with Python code.
Project Jupyter is a spinoff project of IPython that provides a modern, browser interface for
IPython:

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In a Jupyter Notebook, we can mix working IPython code, markdown text, graphics, magic com-
mands (such as lines of bash), and much more. You’ll notice that many of lecture materials were
prepared using Jupyter notebooks.

1.1.1 Installation

If you followed the PyTorch installation instructions in Notebook 1A, congrats, you already have
Jupyter installed! You can skip to the Launching section below.
If you didn’t install Jupyter but have Anaconda, Jupyter is easily conda installable:
# Activate your PyTorch environment, if you haven't already:
# conda activate pytorch
conda install jupyter
If you didn’t install Jupyter and choose not to use Anaconda, Jupyter is also easily pip installable:
pip install jupyter

1.1.2 Launching

To open, switch to your working directory and type the following into your terminal/command
prompt:
jupyter notebook
Depending on your OS, Jupyter will either automatically open a tab with Jupyter running, or
provide a local host address for you to paste into your favorite browser.
In your browser, you should see your working directory appear. IPython notebooks will have a book
symbol before their names and can be opened by clicking on them. In this course, you’ll mostly
be working through pre-existing notebooks, but should you want to create a new noteboook, new
notebooks can be created by clicking on the “New” dropdown menu in the upper right corner.

1.1.3 Use

Jupyter notebooks are composed of a collection of cells. New cells can be created with the “+”
button (1), or the A(bove) or B(elow) key while in Command mode. Move a selected cell relative to
other cells with the arrow buttons (3). Delete a cell by either clicking the cut button (2) (Note: this
is “Cut”, so it will also copy the contents), or typing d twice in Command mode. Cells can be run
by clicking on the play button (4), or with Ctrl+Enter. Various options for running multiple or
all cells are also listed under Cell > and Kernel >. For this class, you’ll mostly use cells containing
“Code” or “Markdown”, as indicated by the dropdown menu in the ribbon at the top (5).
Keyboard shortcuts can be used to perform many common tasks in Jupyter. These can be found
at Help > Keyboard Shortcuts. Many of these hotkeys require a cell to be in Command mode,
which is signified by a blue stripe on the left side of the cell (7) (as opposed to the green stripe for
editing mode). Command mode can be entered with either the Esc key, or by clicking on the side
bar (7). Editing mode can be entered by clicking on the appropriate cell, or hitting Enter.

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Code cells Cells that run code in the kernel set during the creation of the notebook. This should
default to Python 3 for you, and you can verify the kernel by looking in the upper right corner (6).
Code cells can contain import statements, multiple lines of Python scripts, function definitions,
etc., and outputs (or errors) are shown below the cell after they are run.
A note about IPython cells: the results of previously defined variables persist, even if you delete
the cells that originally defined them; this is important to remember, as it can be quite startling
the first time you experience a variable you thought you deleted coming back from the dead. Since
cells usually contain fragments of a program and can be run in any order, you need to be sure to
run any pre-requisite cells first. Normally this is as simple as finding the cells that haven’t been
run yet, running them, and then trying again. It is good practice to put your cells in the order
they should be run so that other people (or you) opening your notebook can just “Cell > Run all
cells” to replicate your results.

Markdown cells Cells for inserting text. These are not lines of code, but are formatted nicely
when run. All of the instructions in these notebooks are written in Markdown. It’s easier seen
than explained, so if you’re curious, double-click on any cell consisting of text (including this one)
to see how they were writen.

1.1.4 Additional Resources

More info on Jupyter here: http://jupyter-notebook.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

1.2 Google Colaboratory

If you do not want to install PyTorch and Jupyter locally on your machine, Google Colaboratory
(Colab) is a great alternative which is also free! If you’re familiar with Jupyter IPython notebooks,
you’ll feel right at home using Colab as well; many of the core features and much of the usage feel
the same.

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Colab is cloud-hosted service, so your browser serves as a connection to one of Google’s data centers,
which does the computation for you before returning the results. As a result, unlike Jupyter, which
runs locally, you’ll need an internet connection to use Colab. You can upload IPython notebooks
from your Google Drive, or try out notebooks written by others. For example, you can download
the notebooks for this course, and open them up in Colab to run.
One of the best parts about Colab is that it has free GPUs (and even TPUs) available to
run code! This is actually an incredible offering, as GPUs greatly accelerate neural network
computation and are usually fairly expensive to buy, set-up, and maintain. GPUs allow you to run
more complex neural networks than what we will show in this course, as we try to make everything
runnable on just CPUs. Keep in mind though that these free GPUs are primarily meant for
education and research. For other purposes (or heavier computation), Colab will likely direct you
to Google Cloud Platform, for a paid service.

1.2.1 Installation and Launching

No installation required (besides a web browser)! Just go to

1.3 Spyder

Spyder is an open-source integrated development environment for Python. Spyder is a bit more
traditional of an IDE compared to Jupyter or Colab; it’s primarily used to write full Python (.py)

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files to be executed as scripts or programs, though an IPython console (bottom right, in the figure
below) is also included. Anyone who has coded in MATLAB’s IDE or RStudio should feel right at
home. It looks like this:

1.3.1 Installation

Again, if you followed Notebook 1A’s installation instructions and installed Anaconda as your
Python distribution, you already have Spyder! Spyder is included in the Anaconda distribution.
However, you may need to make sure that Spyder is installed in the same environment as PyTorch
in order to use it:
# Activate your PyTorch environment, if you haven't already:
# conda activate pytorch
conda install spyder
Alternatively, you can go to “Tools>PYTHONPATH Manager”, click “Add Path”, and enter in
the path to your Anaconda environment.
If you didn’t install Anaconda but already have Python, Spyder is also easily pip installable:
# NOTICE: Only do this if you didn't already install Anaconda
pip3 install --upgrade pip
pip3 install spyder

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1.3.2 Launching

If using Anaconda, before launching, make sure to activate your environment so Spyder can find
your packages. To open, type the following into your terminal/command prompt:
spyder

1.3.3 Additional Resources

More info on Spyder here: https://docs.spyder-ide.org/

1.4 Text editors: Vim, Emacs, Sublime, Notepad++, gedit, nano, etc.

There’s nothing forcing you to use an IDE specialized for Python. Python files are just text with
a .py extension. This means that if you prefer something more lightweight, you can do all you
coding in your favorite text editor, and when you’re ready to run your code, just run the following
in your shell:
python [your_python_file].py
This will run [your_python_file].py with your default Python version.
If this is your default preference, I’m guessing you probably don’t need help with installation or
usage.