How to Setup Mac for Python Development

This is how I setup Python development on my Mac.

Homebrew

Install Homebrew

http://brew.sh
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Python

It’s much easier to manage different versions of python using pyenv (https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv), which you can install using:

brew update
brew install pyenv

Check the different python versions you can install:

pyenv install --list

Install a specific python version (choose from the list above):

pyenv install 3.12.0

Then, check the python versions installed:

pyenv versions
  system
  3.7.10
  3.8.10
  3.8.11
  3.9.7
  3.10.0
* 3.10.6 (set by /Users/harrywang/.pyenv/version)
  3.12.0

Set the global python version:

pyenv global 3.10.6

You may also need to do the following to make sure the pyenv python will be executed instead of the Mac default one:

eval "$(pyenv init --path)"

To make the above command work after reboot, run vim ~/.zshrc and add eval "$(pyenv init --path)" to the file.

if you want to use a specific python version within a specific folder, go to that folder and set a local python version:

pyenv local 3.9.7

PS: setup pyenv on Ubuntu:

ssh hjwang@128.175.21.xxx  # ssh to the remote server
sudo apt update -y  # update apt
sudo apt install -y make build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev wget curl llvm libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev xz-utils tk-dev libffi-dev liblzma-dev python-openssl git  # install dependencies
git clone https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv.git ~/.pyenv  # clone the repo
echo 'export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"' >> ~/.bashrc  # setup environment
echo 'export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc  # setup environment
echo -e 'if command -v pyenv 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then\n eval "$(pyenv init -)"\nfi' >> ~/.bashrc  # setup environment
exec "$SHELL"  # restart the shell
pyenv install --list  # available versions to install 
pyenv versions  # installed versions
pyenv install 3.9.1  # install a Python version
pyenv global 3.9.1  # set global python version to use

Github

follow https://help.github.com/articles/set-up-git/ to install Github CLI and cache your credentials (choose HTTPS during the process):

brew install gh
gh auth login

Once completed, try the following two commands to verify:

$ git config --global user.name
Harry Wang
$ git config --global user.email
harryjwang@gmail.com

Clone a sub-folder from a Github repo: https://github.com/harrywang/python-docs-samples/ is too big, I only want to clone a sub-folder enterpriseknowledgegraph:

git clone -n --depth=1 --filter=tree:0 https://github.com/harrywang/python-docs-samples
git sparse-checkout set --no-cone enterpriseknowledgegraph
git checkout

Caching your GitHub password in Git: https://help.github.com/articles/caching-your-github-password-in-git/

Virtual Environment

See why you need virtual environments: https://realpython.com/python-virtual-environments-a-primer/

To create a virtual environment:

• go to the folder of the project
• create a requirements.txt to include the packages  
• create a venv folder for the virtual environment, activate it and install packages: 

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

VSCode

Just download the installation package and install from https://code.visualstudio.com/

CHANGELOG

This post was originally shared on Medium on August 30, 2016.