Windows

System requirements for Python and Git are minimal. Therefore, the minimal system requirements for setup will be based on the requirements for Visual Studio Code.

Overview

  1. Git

  1. Python

  • Python is the programming language we will use to build our applications

  • We will use various Python libraries (such as Dash and Pandas) as the primary building blocks for our application

  1. Github

  • Github is a cloud-based service that hosts Git repositories. We will use these cloud repositories to deploy our Dash apps.

  • You will need to create an account on GitHub

Code Editor

  • Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

    • VS Code is a program that we will use to edit and debug our code

    • VS Code Extensions help us to code and improve productivity

    • Note: There are many different IDEs options but using VS Code will make for a smoother learning experience for this course

Installing Git

To install Git onto your computer, follow the instructions below:

Installing VS Code

Follow the instructions below to install VS Code, set it up, and add Python extensions.

Installing Python

Check if you already have Python installed by typing python --version in the VScode terminal. Python version 3.9 or above is highly encouraged. If you see Python installed, skip to section named “Install additional libraries”. If you do not have Python installed, follow the installation instructions below first:

Installing additional libraries

We need to install various Python libraries, including Dash, to run our application. We will use pip to install the libraries, but you may use equivalent commands in other package managers as well including poetry, mamba, conda, and others.

Assuming you are using pip, paste the following commands one at a time into the VScode terminal and ensure installation is complete:

  • pip install dash

  • pip install dash-bootstrap-components

  • pip install pandas

img-install-dash

Caution

You may be asked to install some dependencies, and you should agree to have those dependencies installed.