Courtesy of Prof. Larry Yaeger’s course

Mac usersrunning Leopard (10.5.x) or later already have a version of Python installed that is good enough, but installing the main development tool (IDLE) and the modules you will need for your assignments can be a bit challenging, especially on Snow Leopard (10.6.x), so the following is recommended:

·  Download and install the freeacademic version of theEnthought CanopyPython Distribution.(Be sure to choose the Mac version; the standard 32-bit version is sufficient.)

·  Download and installthis recompiled version ofPyGame.If it doesn’t work, then try this version.

·  Other relevant packages like numpy, networkx, matplotlib etc are available in the Enthought repository, which you can install later.

Should you prefer to work with the built-in version of Python for some reason, you can installIDLE.appby following the instructions athttp://wiki.python.org/moin/MacPython/Leopard(or you can invoke IDLE from the command line or you can use a different editor).You will be on your own installingPyGame, as the version available above will probably not work.

Windows usersshould install the latest 2.x "standard" (aka "production") release of Python fromhttp://www.python.org/download/.(Do not install a 3.x release, as important syntax changes have taken place in the language thatmakeit incompatible with the textbook examples.)Alternatively, you may also wish to download and install the freeacademic version of theEnthought Canopy Python Distribution.You will need to install a recent release ofPygameappropriate to your operating system fromhttp://www.pygame.org/download.shtml. Other relevant packages like numpy, networkx, matplotlib etc are available in the Enthought repository for later install.

Linux users:Most modern Linux releases probably already have Python and IDLE. For those that do not have at least Python 2.5.1 installed, go tohttp://www.python.org/download/and download and install a recent 2.x version of Python.You will also need to installPyGame (See section ‘Unix Distributions’ in the linked site).

General note: If you have more than one version of Python, and library installations (pygame, numpy etc.) seem to prefer the version that you don’t prefer, simply copying the library folder into the desired Python version might work. The exact location of the libraries depends on the OS of course.