Modern Python Projects Transcripts
Chapter: Python versions and packages
Lecture: Don't change the system Python
Login or
purchase this course
to watch this video and the rest of the course contents.
0:00
Before you can start working on your Python project, you need to first install Python on your computer.
0:06
Depending on your operating system, your computer might already come with some version of Python If you're using macOS, then it comes with Python 2.7.
0:14
If you're using Linux, then the Python version depends on which distribution you are using in Debian 10. It's also Python 2.7 in Ubuntu 20.4.
0:24
You have Python 3.8 under the Command Python 3, but there is no Python command. And in Windows 10, you don't have any version of Python installed.
0:34
The Python version that you already have on your computer is often called System Python.
0:39
And no matter what system version of Python you have installed, I strongly suggest that you don't use it. First of all, as we saw,
0:47
it's terribly outdated. Python 2.7 is no longer officially supported by the core developers, and hopefully you are no longer using it,
0:55
since a long time, you might be tempted to upgrade the Python version to Python 3
1:00
But you probably have some programs on your computer that requires you to have
1:05
Python 2.7. Even some parts of your operating system may need Python 2.7. If you update system Python,
1:13
those programs will stop working. Let me repeat that because it's important.
1:17
If you change the Python version that comes preinstalled on your operating system, you risk that your computer will stop working at all.
1:25
And that is not fun. I've tell it in the past, when I didn't know much about programming and I had to reinstall the whole operating system
1:32
So my advice here is to leave the system Python alone and pretend it doesn't exist.