Quick Setup for new Python Project on Mac M1

Prerequisites

• VS Code
• Python 3

It is recommended to install with homebrew
brew install python3
It is also possible to download and install from the official website

Open a Terminal to verify that you have installed successfully

python3 --version

Start the project

Create a new folder for the project and open it with Visual Studio Code. Create a new Python file hello.py

Paste the hello world code and save the file.

msg = "Hello World"
print(msg)

There are several ways to run the code

• the play button on the top right corner of vscode
• Right-click anywhere in the editor window and select Run Python File in Terminal
• Right-click the file and select Run Python File in Terminal
• Select the lines of code that you want to run, then press Shift+Enter

Use packages

Set up the environment for the packages

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

You should notice the .venv (.venv) user@name prefix in the terminal

Make sure the environment is set to the workspace environment that we have just created. Use the Python: Select Interpreter command from the Command Palette.

Install the packages

python3 -m pip install matplotlib

Now you can import are use the package