This course requires a number of free services and tools available on Unix/Mac systems. If you're on Windows, see below for options.
See the Technical FAQ page if you run into snags and/or report an issue.
- Slack: Join the comm-177p-progj channel in the StanfordJournalism workspace.
- GitHub
Windows users will need to gain access to a Linux system. Beginners are strongly urged to use a Desktop version of Linux that includes a graphical interface.
There are two officially supported options on this front.
Both require you to first install VirtualBox.
Once VirtualBox is installed, below are the options listed in order of increasing complexity:
- Use VirtualBox with an Xubuntu virtual machine we've customized for this course. With this option, you can skip most of the additional installation steps below.
- Use VirtualBox to build your own Ubuntu virtual machine from scratch. You should download the latest "LTS" desktop version (18.04 as of this writing) from the Ubuntu downloads page and follow the install VirtualBox and Ubuntu Linux instructions. Then perform the installations below inside the Ubuntu virtual machine.
There are also more advanced options such as:
- VSCode with a Windows Linux Subsystem
- Using a dual-boot setup
- Running Linux from a USB stick
- Using a "headless" version of Linux (i.e. one without a graphical interface) by installing Windows subystem for Linux on Windows 10
These latter options are not officially supported by course instructors at this time and are intended for more advanced users. Please consult with the instructor if you have questions about these options.
You'll need a text editor designed for working with code. For beginners, we recommend VSCode or Atom, although you're free to use other tools of your own choosing.
Mac and Linux both come with terminal programs, which provide a text-based interface to your operating system and related command-line tools.
On Mac, use Command + spacebar to perform a Spotlight search for "terminal".
For a more pleasant shell experience, we strongly recommend installing iTerm2.
Git is a version control system that we'll use to save and submit all the code and data related to class assignments, exercises and projects.
For beginner Mac users, install Homebrew, a software package manager used on the command line. Then use Homebrew to install git.
Open a Terminal shell (see above) and then run the below commands. Along the way, you'll be prompted to agree to Apple licensing terms and to provide your laptop password.
Note: The below commands are based on Steps 1-3 of How to Install Xcode, Homebrew, Git etc. See the blog post for more details.
xcode-select --install
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
brew doctor
brew update
brew install git
Open a terminal shell and run:
sudo apt install git-all
After installing git (see above), open a Terminal shell and run the below git configuration commands (make sure to replace name and email with your own):
git config --global user.name "John Doe"
git config --global user.email [email protected]
Use the below commands to ensure the configuration worked:
git config --global --get user.name
git config --global --get user.email
SSH keys are a best practice for secure network communications. In our case, we'll use them to more easily transfer code to and from GitHub.
Follow the instructions under Generating a new ssh key. Do not set a passphrase when prompted (just leave it blank). Also, you do not have to perform the steps in Adding your SSH key to the ssh-agent.
Python 3.5 - 3.7
Before installing Python, first open a shell and run: python --version.
If you have a version between Python 3.5 and 3.7, you're all set.
If you have an older Python version (e.g. 2.7), please follow the Hitchhiker's Guide to Python install instructions.
Follow these steps but skip the installation of Homebrew, which should have been installed earlier when we set up git (see above).
Use pyenv, a tool that allows you to install and manage multiple versions of Python.
Below steps are customized for Ubuntu Linux. See the pyenv docs for details on customizing for other distributions (or for Mac)
# Clone pyenv
git clone https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv.git ~/.pyenv
# Add pyenv vars to bash config
echo 'export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo -e 'if command -v pyenv 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then\n eval "$(pyenv init -)"\nfi' >> ~/.bashrc
# Reinitialize shell
exec "$SHELL"
# Install build dependencies
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends make build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev wget curl llvm libncurses5-dev xz-utils tk-dev libxml2-dev libxmlsec1-dev libffi-dev liblzma-dev
# Install python version 3.7.6
pyenv install 3.7.6
pyenv global 3.7.6
DataKit is a command-line tool we'll use to manage code and data for class assignments. It provides us with a standardized structure for all of our projects and allows us to easily submit code to GitHub.
Follow the below steps to install and configure DataKit:
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stanfordjournalism/cookiecutter-stanford-progj/master/requirements.txt | xargs pip install
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stanfordjournalism/stanford-dj-vm/master/configure_system.py
python configure_system.py
Complete the configuration steps mentioned at the end of the python configure_system.py script.