Jupyter Notebook for Python

After installing Python and virtualenv, let's create an environment for our Python projects:

cd ~/Dropbox
virtualenv --python=python3.6 HFFE
cd HFFE
source bin/activate             # or .\Scripts\activate on Windows PowerShell

Now we will install all the packages we will use:

pip install -U pip              # update pip installer
pip install numpy               # library for math (matrices, linear algebra)
pip install matplotlib          # library for plotting
pip install jupyter
pip install tensorflow          # facilitates machine learning

Now we are ready to launch Jupyter. Running the code below in the terminal will start the jupyter notebook process and launch a web browser with the application. You can use this application to open .ipynb files, write text and run Python commands interactively.

jupyter notebook

Now, download the python-basics.ipynb file and put it in the ~/Dropbox/HFFE/ folder we just created. Go to the Jupyter application in the web browser and you should see the file there. You can now click on it to have it open on a separate tab. The file contains a mix between text and code, and you can type and run code in it.

The notebook is interactive and has 2 modes (with different shortcuts): Command Mode and Edit Mode. In the Command Mode you can use keyboard shortcuts to move around, create and delete cells (the boxes that hold text or code), and run code. In the Edit Mode you can edit the cells, type text or python commands and also run code.

Here is a summary of the commands: