Getting Python running locally takes just a few steps, though the details vary slightly by operating system.
# Windows/macOS: download the installer from python.org (check "Add to PATH" on Windows)
# macOS (Homebrew): brew install python
# Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): sudo apt install python3 python3-pip
python3 --version # verify installation (or 'python --version' on Windows)
Always install from python.org or your OS's official package manager rather than an unofficial source, and on Windows specifically, make sure to check "Add Python to PATH" during installation — this is the single most common setup mistake, causing python to be "not recognized" in the terminal afterward.
For an editor, VS Code with the official Python extension (from Microsoft) is the most popular free choice, offering IntelliSense, debugging, and linting; PyCharm is a more full-featured (Community edition is free) IDE built specifically for Python. Jupyter Notebook/JupyterLab is the standard tool for data science work, letting you run code in interactive, re-runnable cells alongside plots and notes.
pip is Python's package manager, bundled with modern Python installs — pip install requests downloads and installs a third-party package. The next lesson on virtual environments (in the Modules chapter) explains why you should almost never pip install directly into your system-wide Python.