First, go to http://anaconda.org/. We can see Download Anaconda the top-right part of the page. Based on the individual operating system, users should download the appropriate package.

Depending on which version you prefer, you could download Python 3.6 or Python 2.7. Generally speaking, for new learners it is a good idea to download the latest version (Python 3.6 in this case). This applies for both Mac and Linux-based operating systems.

Refer to the following steps:

1. For PC users, after clicking on Windows, you will be presented with different versions to download.

As of May 09, 2018, two versions of Python accompanying Anaconda, version 3.6 and version 2.7, are available If there...

The steps for testing Python are as follows:

1. For PC users, after clicking All Programs, Anaconda3.6, and then Anaconda Prompt, we would see the following.

Note that different users would probably get a different path:

2. Then, just type python, and we can launch it, as shown here:

3. It tells us that Python 3.6.3 was operational. We could also try import scipy as sp to see if it is preinstalled:

4. After we type import scipy as sp, no error message appears, which indicates that the package was preinstalled. The command of sp.sqrt(3) would offer us the square root of 3. Another example with the related graph is shown here:

import scipy as np 
from pylab import * 
x=np.linspace(-np.pi,np.pi,256,endpoint=True) 
c,s=np.cos(x),np.sin(x) 
plot(x,c),plot(x,s) 
show()  

The previous code will give an output such as the following:

For a Windows version, after navigating to Anaconda3 from All Programs and then clicking on IPython, we can see the following:

This tells us that the version of Python is 3.6.3 and that the version of IPython is 6.1.0. We could type a few commands to test it. For example, if we invest $100 today for an investment horizon of 5 years, and the annual return is 10%, what is our expected future value? The future value formula for a given present value is provided here:

where FV is the future value, PV is the present value, R is the period return, and n is the number of periods:

The first line of command of pv=100 assigns a value of 100 to pv. For the fifth line, we typed a command line of pv*(1+r)^n. However, we received an error message of TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for...

Here, we show you how to write simple Python code via Jupyter:

1. From the menu, after clicking Anaconda, we can find an entry called Jupyter Notebook. After clicking on that entry, we can see the following:

2. If we click New on the right-hand side, we can find several choices. After we choose Python 3, we end up with the following starting file:

3. We can now type our Python commands in the box. Remember to press Shift + Enter if you want to execute the command (shown here):

4. We can also type multiple commands and execute them, as shown here:

The colorful and distinct treatment of keywords, parentheses, and values makes our programming a little easier.

In the Anaconda3 menu, the last entry is Spyder. After clicking it, we can launch Spyder, shown here:

The preceding screenshot shows three panels. The left panel is for writing and editing our programs, the bottom-right panel is for command lines (we could type simple commands there), and the top-right panel is for our variables. For example, after we type pv=100, it would show the variable name, type, size, and value, as shown here:

We could also write our Python program, and debug and run them via the top-left panel. For example, we could run a program with pv_f() function to estimate the present value of one future cash flow, shown here:

In the preceding screenshot, the green play button is for running the whole Python program, while the second green-yellow one is for partially running it. This feature makes our debugging efforts a little easier, which...

The following steps are for R package installation:

1. Note that the R package is not preinstalled when installing Anaconda, as shown here:

2. To install R software, we have to issue the following command after we click Anaconda Prompt:

conda install r-essentials

3. After installation, we can see the following:

4. We could try a few commands. For example, we first generate an R function called pv_f() with the keyword function. For this function, we have three input values: fv for future value, r for interest rate, and n for the number of periods:

The steps for installing Julia are as follows:

1. First, we go to the following web page to download Julia: https://julialang.org/downloads/.
2. As when downloading Anaconda, we have different versions depending on our system, as shown here:

3. Again, based on your operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux), choose the appropriate version and download the executable package.

4. Clicking the executable, we can install the package and, in order to launch Julia, we simply click on Julia.exe.
5. In it, we can type println("Hello World"), as shown:

Alternatively, for Windows, we can click All Programs | Julia. We can also copy and paste Julia to our desktop.

6. In addition, another way to launch Julia is through a DOS window. However, before we can do so, we have to add the path to the directory that contains Julia.exe to our path. For example...

Follow these steps to install Octave:

1. To install the Octavekernel linked to Anaconda, at Anaconda Prompt, we log in by issuing the Anaconda login command. Note that in order to log in, users have to register first at https://anaconda.org. After logging in to Anaconda, we could issue the following command:

pip install octave_kernel

2. After we launch Jupyter and click New on the right-hand side, we can see Octave, among other languages:

3. Now we can test a simple program in Octave:

x=-9:0.1:9; 
y=sin(x); 
plot(x,y) 

4. The related output is shown here:

1. In Chapter 1, Ecosystem of Anaconda, we showed that we could go to the link https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/user-guide/.
2. After clicking the link, we would see four entries, shown here:

3. We could type conda help to find information about the usages of Conda. In Windows, click All Programs | Anaconda | Anaconda Prompt. In the Prompt, type conda help, as shown here:

4. To find all packages associated with a Conda environment, we could issue the conda list command.
5. Since the number of packages is quite large, a better solution is to generate a text file. We could issue conda list >c:/temp/list.txt:

6. The first several lines from the output file called list.txt are shown:

7. We could write an R program to read this text file:

> x<-read.csv('c:/temp/list.txt',skip=2) 
> head(x) 
X_ipyw_jlab_nb_ext_conf....0.1.0............py36ha9200a3_0 
1...

In this chapter, we showed you how to install Anaconda and test if the installation was successful. We looked at how to launch Jupyter and how to use it to launch Python, how to launch Spyder and R, and how to find help. Most of these concepts or procedures are quite basic, so users who are quite confident with them can skip this chapter and go to Chapter 3, Data Basics, directly.

In Chapter 3, Data Basics, we first discuss open data sources such as the UCI (University of California at Irvin) machine learning depository and the bureau of labor statistics. Then, we introduce the Python Pandas package. Many issues, such as how to deal with missing data, sorting, how to slice and dice datasets, merging different datasets, and data input and output, will be discussed in detail. Several relevant packages for data manipulation will be also introduced and discussed.

1. What is Anaconda? How do we use its platform?
2. What is the home page for Anaconda?
3. How do we install Anaconda?
4. After Anaconda is installed, should we install Python separately? What about R?
5. What is Jupyter? How do we launch it?
6. How do we launch Python from Jupyter?
7. How do we use Python via Jupyter?
8. What is Spyder and how do we launch it?
9. Write a Python program to estimate the present value of the annuity, as shown in the following formula:

pv(annuity) is the present value of the annuity, C is the periodic payment, R is the discount rate, and n is the number of periods.

10. Find out how many packages are available after you have installed Anaconda. (Hint: check the link at https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/packages/pkg-docs.)
11. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using https://jupyter.org/try?
12. Where can new users find more information about...