I tried to learn Python many moons ago but for whatever reason I never really took the step to learn the language.

Recently I decied to give it another go.

Mainly because I am interested in Data Analytics – I spend a lot of time perusing Kaggle and even though most of what is said there feels like I am swimming in an ocean of jumbled letters, I cannot stop myself from going back and trying again. I especially love the competitions – of which I cannot even begin to get a grip on. But that says something in itself. Most of the time I feel like I can barely understand the code that is written and yet I can’t stop going back. I usually give up way before now.

Which brings me to python. I have been working my way through learning the language using Data Camp and recently I purchased the book: Python Crash Course. After installing Python and working through the examples in the book ( I am not that far into it yet) I felt the need to install things like numpy and pygame. And then the world opened up and swallowed me whole. Hours were spent alternately surfing the internet while trying different ways to install those two items. Until finally I figured out that :

1. I had to assign the Path variable
2. I had to place the downloaded files (.whl who knew that a wheel file existed?) in the same folder as the pip file was located
3. Don’t forget to install the Pip part too
4. And then open a command prompt and navigate to the folder where the pip and the numpy and the pygame were all located and then
5. Run pip install pygame (use the wheel file 32 bit doesn’t matter if you have a 64 bit operating system) and Pip install numpy
6. And then Import numpy as np while using the python shell..

All of this because I am using windows. perhaps it’s the same process if using Linux? Perhaps I should try that next…

File this one under Python; you had me at Hello World.