Installation
Learn how to install Python 3 on your machine.
But, before actually installing there are some points that I would like you to note. Python actually comes pre-installed on most operating system these days, but its the old and legacy version Python 2.
Python 2 will officially be retiring on Jan 1st, 2020, so its ideal to straight away get working with Python 3. Check out the installation instructions as per your operating system.
Installing on Windows
Installing Python 3 on Windows is just as easy as installing any other program, in addition to Python 3, I would highly recommend installing Git Bash, so that you can work with the exact same commands in the tutorial as mine and we need not keeping on switching between operating systems. Ofcouse, I will let you know whenever there are differences.
Navigate to following link and download the setup file
https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
Under {==Stable Releases==} check out your system and download the setup file accordingly, in most cases your system should be 64 bit, if that's the case you can download the following setup file
Windows x86-64 executable installer
After downloading you can install it as you would install any other program. The installer will install everything and also setup environment variables.
Installing on Mac
Navigate to following link and download the setup file
https://www.python.org/downloads/mac-osx/
Under {==Stable Releases==} you can download the following file
macOS 64-bit installer
And then install it as any other program, it will automatically setup environment variables for you.
Alternatively
If you are using brew, then installing Python is very simple, open your terminal and type
brew install python
By default brew will install python 3 to the following directory -
/usr/local/bin/python3
You can check it by typing the following on your terminal
which python3
Installing on Linux
Installing Python 3.7 on Ubuntu.
If you are using Ubuntu 19.04 Disco Dingo then you already have Python 3.7.3 pre-installed, just sit back and you can directly skip to "Setting Up Alias"
For others, start by updating ubuntu, open your terminal and type the following -
sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common
Add the repository
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
Install Python 3.7
sudo apt install python3.7
Checking Version
You can check the installed python version.
python3 --version
Python 3 also installs "pip3" by default, it is the package manager for python, you can check its version by
pip3 --version
Setting Up Alias (Optional)
Since Python 2 comes pre-installed on almost all the operating systems, the default {==python==} keyword points to Python 2, for using Python 3 we need to type {==python3==}, which for me gets a little boring and unintuitive since Python 2 will be reaching its end of life soon.
So, I just setup a alias, which simply means that, I say to my computer, "Whenever I type {==python==} it has to refer to Python 3 and not to Python 2".
To setup a alias open your terminal and navigate to your home directory
cd
If you are using bash, open the bash_profile, since I am using Visual Studio Code, I can directly open the file by typing
code .bash_profile
If you are using atom, you can open by
atom .bash_profile
Or if you are using PyCharm
charm .bash_profile
Instead of bash if you are using zsh, you can open .zshrc
code .zshrc
Add the following 2 lines at the end of the file
alias python='python3'
alias pip='pip3'
Now close and restart your terminal, to check if its working properly type the following
python --version
It should show the current Python 3 installed version.
Setting up your development environment and code editor
(External Links)
Excellent environment setup videos by Corey Schafer -