Python Memory Management and Tips Transcripts
Chapter: Setup and tools
Lecture: You'll need Python 3

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0:00 in this short chapter, we're going to talk about what you need to follow along
0:03 with the course and to write code and play with the same tools that we're going
0:08 to use. Now, right off the bat,
0:10 Would it surprise you to know that you're gonna need Python for a Python memory management
0:15 course? Of course you are.
0:16 But I do want to point out that you're gonna need at least Python 3.6 if
0:20 you want to run the code that we're using and if you want exactly what we're
0:25 using in this course, we're using 3.8, specifically,
0:28 3.8.5. These memory behaviors can change slightly from version to version,
0:34 but they should be pretty stable in Python 3 at this point.
0:38 But the syntax, things like F-strings and whatnot,
0:41 we are using those, and those require Python 3.6 and beyond.
0:44 So the code will not run without 3.6 so make sure you have that right version.
0:49 Now, how do you know if you have the right version?
0:52 Well, you go to command prompt or your terminal and type python3 -V
0:56 in Mac os and on Linux,
0:59 and hopefully you get something like 3.8.5 or higher.
1:03 The screenshot when I took it was a little bit older,
1:05 but you know, you get the idea. On Windows,
1:08 you probably should type python space,
1:11 Dash capital V. Now one of various things can happen here,
1:15 especially on windows. On windows, what you might get is,
1:18 it might say, Python 3,
1:19 or it might say python 2. You might also have Python 3
1:22 but your path might not have it first.
1:25 If nothing at all comes out or the Windows Store opens,
1:29 the newer versions of Windows 10 will try to go to the Windows Store and install
1:35 Python for you if you type it. And that will happen usually if you just
1:38 type Python or Python 3 by itself.
1:41 But with this -V, if it says nothing,
1:43 that means you don't really have Python installed.
1:45 It's just this store shim that really should say "you don't have python installed",
1:49 even with an argument. Nonetheless,
1:51 that's what happens. So make sure that you get Python 3.6 or above ideally
1:57 3.8 or above on your Windows machine or on Linux or Mac Os.
2:02 Finally, if you don't have Python installed,
2:04 there's all these varying recommendations of how you install it and how that changes over time,
2:09 What the trade offs are.
2:11 Personally, I installed Python 3 on my Mac using Homebrew and I installed Python
2:16 three on Windows using Chocolatey.
2:19 So, those are both systems package management systems for the operating system that lets you
2:24 automatically upgrade to the next version just by saying Brew -
2:28 upgrade or Chocolatey upgrade python Things like that,
2:31 which is really, really cool.
2:32 But there's a bunch of different ways and trade off,
2:34 so I recommend you check out this Real Python article:
2:36 realpython.com/installing-python/ and see what they say
2:41 now, they say they're going to keep this up to date to try to keep up
2:44 with the times or what the options are for installing python.
2:48 So if you need to, have a look here.