Course Environment Setup (LING-ENV)

You’ll create a consistent Python environment so every notebook runs the same on everyone’s machine.

Conda path¶

1) Install¶

Windows & Mac: Install Anaconda.
After installation, open a new Terminal/Command Prompt. If conda isn’t recognized, run conda init zsh (macOS) or conda init cmd.exe (Windows), then reopen the terminal.

2) Create and activate the environment¶

Go to the virtual_environment folder (where environment.yml lives):

cd path/to/your/virtual_environment_setup_directory  # Revise the path

conda env create -f environment.yml # Create the environment

conda activate ling-env # Activate the environment

3) Download language resources¶

python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm

python -c "import nltk; nltk.download('punkt'); nltk.download('stopwords'); nltk.download('wordnet')"

4) Register the Jupyter kernel¶

python -m ipykernel install --user --name ling-env --display-name "Python (LING-ENV)"

5) Launch Jupyter¶

# Start JupyterLab or classic Notebook:
jupyter lab
# or
jupyter notebook

6) Switch Kernel¶

In each notebook, choose Kernel → Change/Select Kernel → Python (LING-ENV).

5) Quick verification¶

Run the following code when you are in LING-ENV.

import sys, os, importlib, spacy, nltk
env = os.environ.get("CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV") or os.path.basename(sys.prefix)
print("Python:", sys.version.split()[0])
print("Env:", env)
print("Kernel:", sys.executable)

for name in ("numpy","pandas","sklearn","matplotlib","seaborn",
             "nltk","spacy","wordcloud","tqdm","regex","ipykernel","jupyterlab"):
    try:
        m = importlib.import_module(name)
        print(f"{name:12s}", getattr(m, "__version__", "?"))
    except Exception as e:
        raise SystemExit(f"❌ Missing or broken package '{name}': {e}")

try:
    spacy.load("en_core_web_sm"); print("spaCy model: en_core_web_sm ✅")
except Exception as e:
    raise SystemExit(f"❌ Missing spaCy model: {e}")

for pkg, where in [("punkt","tokenizers/punkt"), ("stopwords","corpora/stopwords")]:
    try: nltk.data.find(where); print(f"NLTK data: {pkg} ✅")
    except LookupError: raise SystemExit(f"❌ Missing NLTK data '{pkg}'. See setup instructions.")
print("✅ Environment check passed.")

Python: 3.11.13
Env: base
Kernel: /opt/anaconda3/envs/ling-env/bin/python
numpy        1.26.4
pandas       2.3.3
sklearn      1.7.2
matplotlib   3.10.6
seaborn      0.13.2
nltk         3.9.2
spacy        3.8.7
wordcloud    1.9.4
tqdm         4.67.1
regex        2.5.162
ipykernel    6.30.1
jupyterlab   4.4.9
spaCy model: en_core_web_sm ✅
NLTK data: punkt ✅
NLTK data: stopwords ✅
✅ Environment check passed.