Navigating the Python Development Ecosystem: The Essential Tools and Techniques — An opinionated guide

Note: This article is highly opinionated. These are the tools and workflows that I use (as of 2023). Thus, this is not a list of the best tools out there nor a list of the best way to learn. This is a list that has worked for me and is subject to change.

This article has a couple of tables and lists which are not correctly rendered in Medium. If you have trouble checking them, please check the original article here.

Context

I was trying to help someone I know get started in Python (and Data Science). He already did some courses in Data Science (and thus has at least a basic understanding), but I realized all the surrounding tools were not explained in the courses he took.

Once I started, I found myself explaining several tools, systems, and apps I use daily. After a couple of hours, I thought it would be good to document this as a series of posts, as this is not the first time, nor the last time, I will be explaining such things.

Base operating system

In my opinion, the most important tool out there. It allows you to interact with your computer and limits (so to speak) what you can and can´t do with it.

There are 3 main operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows
• Apple macOS
• GNU/Linux distributions