This class will introduce the basics of the python programming language and the libraries used for scientific computing.

To get the most from this class, you should work on your own laptop.  That
way you practice using python and the scientific libraries on the in the
environment you are most comfortable with.

You will want to install python and the associated libraries on your laptop that you can bring to the seminar.

On Linux machines, you probably already have python and you can get the needed libraries through your system package manager.

For Mac and Windows, I recommend the free Anaconda distribution:

https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual

This will install everything that you need.

If you have trouble getting a local install working, most of the class
material will work automatically in the cloud, either on
[binder](https://mybinder.org/) or [google
colab](https://research.google.com/colaboratory/).

If you have python successfully installed, you should be able to start the python interpreter at the command line as: python. A shell will come up, and you can try out your first program:

print("hello, world")