Setup – Software Carpnetry in Python

Local Setup

The local setup involves installing several things:

Python
The code you’ll use in the workshop
VSCode
VSCode Python & Jupyter extensions and disabling AI features (required for workshop)
Python Packages

You may be able to skip installing git if you already have it installed from the git workshop

The full setup instructions are:

Python

Navigate to the website https://www.python.org/ with your web browser.
Download Python 3.14 (3.14.7 is fine) for your operating system
Run the installer, following all prompts using the default settings

Repository

Go to https://github.com/CurtinIDS/CIDS_Carpentries_Python
Click the green “<> Code” button
Click “Download ZIP” at the bottom of the dropdown
Save it to your local computer in a place that makes sense (e.g. “Documents/Carpentries”). NB: Many people run into issues if saving the file to a onedrive folder. Please try to save it to your local storage.
Open the folder you saved the .zip to in a file browser, right click, extract the zip

VSCode

Navigate to the website https://code.visualstudio.com/ with your web browser.
Download Visual Studio Code for your specific platform/Operating System. vscode_welcome.png
Run the Visual Studio Code Installer and follow all prompts.
Open Visual Studio Code, and click “Continue without Signing in”
Hold “Ctrl” and “Shift”, and while holding press P to open the command pallette (Command + Shift + P for MacOS). If you accidentally delete the carrot, re-open the command pallette
After the carrot (the “>” character ) type in “hide ai”. Click on “Chat: Learn How to Hide AI Features”
Check the box to disable AI features. While some people may find these features useful, please disable them for this workshop to maximise your learning. Now we need to finish setting up VSCode by installing useful packages.
Navigate to the Extension sidebar (1. in image) then search for Python (2.) and click on it. Click the green “Install” button (3.) to install it. The extension will be authored by “Microsoft” at “microsoft.com”
Search for and install the following additional packages like the above step:
a. Jupyter The extension will be authored by “Microsoft” at “microsoft.com”
b. Pylance The extension will be authored by “Microsoft” at “microsoft.com”
c. Error Lens The extension will be authored by “Alexander” with ~10million downloads.
Finally we need to open the folder in VSCode and install project specific packages. This will be similar to how you might open other repositories (e.g. of research groups you’re working, etc.) to work on them after this course.
Click “File” in the menu bar in the top left of VSCode, then click “Open Folder” in the dropdown
Navigate to the folder where you extracted the github repository, and hit “select” to open that folder in VSCode (C:\Users\User\Documents\Projects\CIDS_Carpentries_Python-main in the image above)
You will see a prompt bar like the image below. Click “Manage” then click “Trust”
Enter the Visual Studio Code Command Pallette using Ctrl + Shift + P (Windows) or Command + Shift + P (MacOS) and locate Python: Create Environment.
Select venv.
Select Python 3.14. (the version you just installed)
When asked to “Select dependencies to install”, click the box next to requirements.txt and click “ok”
You should see it installing. Please wait until it finishes

You should now be done!

Google Colab

If you were unable to complete the above steps, you may alternatively access the workshop material using Google Colaboratory (colab) as an emergency measure. Please ensure that you have a Google Account.