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Son is using python at school coding club and for computer science as well.
He's been asking me about adding python add-ons to the home pc ...
E.g. openpyxl which I understand is something to do with allowing data extraction from excel in python.
This is on our main family PC so the thought of some dodgy plug in or download bricking it and/or causing the main family MS account to get hijacked is weighing on my mind.
How do I know what's safe and what's not and what download sites are legitimate and not?
The school is setting him extra challenges to research to stretch him so they're not handing this stuff out on a plate from verified sources.
Help?
Install anaconda. It’s legit and should have all the modules you need.
I second conda, it looks after the packages in discrete environments.
Thanks both.
Assume an install from www.anaconda.com is the best place?
If it’s within budget maybe get him a Pi 400? If he ballses it up you just reflash the SD card & start again 😀
@zilog6128 thanks that sounds even better. Bricking the home pc won't be helpful 🫤 so something else to programme on would be worth a few £.
You've got to play the little tune on the recorder before they come out, OP...
Came in for a dead parrot.
Is disappoint.
There are companies selling refurbed office PCs (e.g. Dell Optiplex) on eBay. One of these running Linux would be ideal. The Pi suggestion is great too
python amateur here so this might be a stupid question but what about jupyter notebooks?
Jupiter notebooks is a development environment. It's good as it lets you create little snippets of code that you can execute one at a time and put nicely formatted text between each bit to explain / remind yourself what it's doing. I'd get them using Jupiter labs tho which is the more modern version.
The other obvious option is Vs code. I prefer jupyter for what I do tho (largely data and AI stuff for work).
jupyter still needs a python install and libraries to operate. there are some cloud hosted versions if what you are doing is fairly lightweight. was starting to experiment with github codespaces but havent done any programming since moving jobs.
Enable wsl and have him work in a Linux instance. It's what 75% of our devs do. It's works better for python. VSCode still gives you a gui.
There's no need to install anything, there any loads of free online Python environments you can use via a web browser..
eg Here is my version of tic-tac-toe in Python on Replit: https://replit.com/@footflaps/tic-tac-toe
This was a task from 100 Days of Code on Udemy.
https://www.udemy.com/course/100-days-of-code
The course used Replit for the first 20 days or so, as there was zero IT involved, you just wrote Python and it worked.
After that, we installed Pycharm, which installs Python Virtual Environments on your Mac or PC, but requires a tiny amount of effort to download and install.
https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/
He'll be fine if careful.
Python packages are installed from the package repository PyPI.
There is malware on there, but as long as he makes sure to look at package on PyPI first to check it's legit and then copy-and-paste the pip install command to avoid typosquats (see https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/451-malicious-packages-available-in-pypi-contained-crypto-stealing-malware/) I'd be happy with him doing it.
Came in for a dead parrot.<br />Is disappoint.<br /><br />
🤣👏🏻
When it comes to working in software and code, most of this conversation might as well be in Inuit or Mandarin, as far as I can understand it!
I was expecting something completely different
Conda is a sensible suggestion - but it’s possibly bloat for a kid at home! In reality breaking the whole PC is extremely unlikely from a python package, but your can screw up other people’s python environments.
a safe option worth taking a look at is pythonanywhere.com - free for basic stuff but might get frustrating if trying to run in the console as the processing is throttled for free users.