Getting Started

• This site walks through getting started with Jupyter notebooks and Python (as well as FRED, Visual Studio Code, GitHub, and Copilot).

• You are not expected to know any of this in advance.

• The goal is to make sure everyone can access the tools and use them.

What You’ll Do Here¶

1. Use JupyterHub at William & Mary

   You’ll learn how to create and use Jupyter notebooks in your browser and

   • create markdown cells

   • display math with $\LaTeX$

   • create code cells

2. Access economic data from FRED

   You’ll see how to pull real macroeconomic data from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database and use it inside notebooks.

3. Create a GitHub account and a repo

   You’ll set up a free GitHub account, your first repo, and learn the basics of git.

4. Connect JupyterHub to GitHub

   You’ll configure JupyterHub so you can

   • open notebooks directly from GitHub

   • commit changes to your repositories

   This step allows you to program collaboratively and keep track of changes to your work.

5. Install and setup Visual Studio Code

   You’ll learn how to install and setup

   • Visual Studio Code

   • Python

   • Jupyter and Python extensions

   • GitHub Copilot

   This gives you a powerful local setup, but everything in the course can still be done through JupyterHub if needed.

Jupyter¶

“A notebook is a shareable document that combines computer code, plain language descriptions, data, rich visualizations like 3D models, charts, graphs and figures, and interactive controls. A notebook, along with an editor (like JupyterLab), provides a fast interactive environment for prototyping and explaining code, exploring and visualizing data, and sharing ideas with others.” (See the Project Jupyter Documentation)

Python¶

“In 2024, Python overtook JavaScript as the most popular language on GitHub, while Jupyter Notebooks skyrocketed”. Octoverse: AI leads Python to top language as the number of global developers surges