Learn Python by Building Data Science Applications

Conda

Last, but not least, let's talk about Conda. Yes, this is a tool, developed by Anaconda, hence the name. If you installed Python via Anaconda, you have it already. Conda represents two things at the same time – a package manager, and a virtual environment manager. Let's now discuss these two roles in more detail.

First, and foremost, Conda allows you to install Python packages (and other tools). Compared to Python's original pip package manager, it is language-agnostic, and can install any type of software; this feature is vital to the data science stack, as many tools are based on code, written in the C, C#, and Fortran languages—Conda just pulls a binary suitable for your operating system, if there is one.

In order to see all the ...