👋 Welcome to ML Software Developer 101!

Welcome to the beginning of your journey to becoming an ML Engineer (MLE)! 🎉 Follow these steps to get your development environment teed up! After you've finished this set-up, feel free to go through the associated Whodunit?! 🕵️‍♀️

📚 Quick Review

We will be using some terminal commands, so let's make sure you know what they are and what they do!

Command	Stands For	Description
ls	long listing	lists all files and directories in the present working directory
ls -a	long listing all	lists hidden files as well
cd {dirname}	change directory	to change to a particular directory
cd ~	change directory home	navigate to HOME directory
cd ..	change directory up	move one level up
cat {filename}	concatenate	displays the file content
sudo	superuser	allows regular users to run programs with the security privileges of the superuser or root
mv {filename} {newfilename}	move	renames the file to new filename
clear	clear	clears the terminal screen
mkdir {dirname}	make directory	create new directory in present working directory or at specified path
rm {filename}	remove	remove file with given filename
touch {filename}.{ext}	touch	create new empty file
rmdir {dirname}	remove directory	deletes a directory
ssh {username}@{ip-address} or {hostname}	secure shell	login into a remote Linux machine using SSH
CTRL + SHIFT + C	copy	keyboard shortcut for copying from terminal
CTRL + SHIFT + V	paste	keyboard shortcut for pasting into terminal

🛠️ Tools We'll Be Using

We will also be using a few tools such as git, conda, and pip.

Git

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects. These are the commands we will be using with git:

git clone -> clone a remote repository to your local computer

git add -> add files to a commit

git commit -m {message} -> commit changes with a message

git push -> push commit to remote repository

Conda & Pip

Conda is an open-source, cross-platform, language-agnostic package manager and environment management system. We will use pip within conda environments to manage our package installations. pip is Python's package management system. conda comes with Anaconda. And Anaconda is a convenient way to set up your Python programming environment since it comes with an enviornment management tool (conda) and comes with extra packages that are commonly used in data science and ML.

Some commands we will use in this lesson when it comes to conda and pip:

conda create --name mle-course python=3.8 pip -> This creates a virtual environment. A virtual environment is a Python environment such that the Python interpreter, libraries, amnd scripts installed into it are isolated from those installed on other environments and any libraries installed on the system. So basically, this allows you to keep all your project's code/dependencies/libraries separated from other projects. You are specifically saying to create said environment with the name mle-course, use python version 3.8, and use pip as your package manager. The command conda invokes the underlying logic to actually make the virtual environment and manages said environments for you.

conda activate mle-course -> This activates the virtual environment you made with the above command for your current terminal session.

pip install numpy pandas matplotlib -> This installs the three packages mentioned - numpy, pandas, and matplotlib. numpy is used for scientific computing, pandas is used for data analysis, and matplotlib is used for data graphics. pip is the Python package manager and you are telling it to install the listed packages to your environment.

Jupyter Notebooks

Jupyter Notebooks are an incredibly useful tool for experimentation, iteration, exploration, and even production at some companies!

They have the file extension .ipynb (IPYthon NoteBook)

You can learn more about Jupyter and their notebooks here!

In order to use a notebook, you'll first want to make sure you've installed jupyter in your environment

1. conda activate <YOUR ENV NAME HERE>
2. pip install jupyter

From here, you can navigate to any folder containing a .ipynb file, and run the command jupyter notebook. This should launch a server, and provide you with a link. Navigate to the link in your browser in order to get started in your notebook!

Be sure to terminate the server when you are done! Closing the webpage does not stop the server, so you'll need to make sure you do that manually in the terminal, or before you close the webpage with your server!

🚀 Let's Get Started!

Let's start off by setting up our environment! Review the environment setup instructions for the local environment that you'll be using in this course.

Windows

• Install Windows Subsystem for Linux using Powershell

wsl --install -d Ubuntu-20.04

• Install Windows Terminal (You can even make it your default!)
• Install Ubuntu

(If you find yourself getting stuck on the WSL2 install, here is a link to video instructions)

Give it a test drive!

Continue by installing the following tools using Windows Terminal to setup your environment. When prompted, make sure to add conda to init.

Tool	Purpose	Command
🐍 Anaconda	Python & ML Toolkits	wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2021.11-Linux-x86_64.sh bash Anaconda3-2021.11-Linux-x86_64.sh source ~/.bashrc
Git	Version Control	sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade sudo apt install git-all

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Open terminal using Ctrl+Shift+T. Enter the following commands in terminal to setup your environment. When prompted, make sure to add conda to init.

Tool	Purpose	Command
🐍 Anaconda	Python & ML Toolkits	wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2021.11-Linux-x86_64.sh bash Anaconda3-2021.11-Linux-x86_64.sh source ~/.bashrc
Git	Version Control	sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade sudo apt install git-all

macOS

To get started, we need to download the MacOS package manager, Homebrew 🍺, so that we can download the tools we'll be using in the course. If you don't already have Homebrew installed, run the following commands:

1. Open terminal using ⌘+Space and type terminal.

2. Install Homebrew using the command below, following the command prompts:

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

3. Update Homebrew (This may take a few minutes)

   git -C /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core fetch --unshallow

   git -C /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask fetch

4. Install the wget command to continue following along brew install wget

Enter the following commands in terminal to setup your environment. When prompted, make sure to add conda to init.

Tool	Purpose	Command
🐍 Anaconda	Python & ML Toolkits	wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2021.11-MacOSX-x86_64.sh bash Anaconda3-2021.11-MacOSX-x86_64.sh source ~/.bashrc
Git	Version Control	brew install git

Let's Make Sure That GitHub is Ready to Roll!

If you don't already have one, make an account on Github

Github SSH Setup

Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) provides a secure communication channel of an unsecured network. Let's set it up!

1. Generate a Private/Public SSH Key Pair.

ssh-keygen -o -t rsa -C "your email address for github"

2. Save file pair. Default location ~/.ssh/id_rsa is fine!

3. At the prompt, type in a secure passphrase.

4. Copy the contents of the public key that we will share with GitHub.

• For WSL:

clip.exe < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 

• For MacOS:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 

• For Linux:

xclip -sel c < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 

5. Go to your GitHub account and go to Settings.

6. Under Access, click on the SSH and GPG keys tabs on the left.

7. Click on the New SSH Key button.

8. Name the key, and paste the public key that you copied. Click the Add SSH Key button

Viewing the Repositories

Login and click on the top right user icon, then go to repositories.

Creating a New Repository

When viewing the respository page, click on New and proceed to create your repo.

---

Filling Respository Details

Create the repository by inputting the following:

• Repo name
• Repo description
• Make repo public
• Add a README
• Add .gitignore (Python template)
• Add license (choose MIT)

Then click Create Repository.

Clone Your Repo

1. Open your terminal and navigate to a place where you would like to make a directory to hold all your files for this class using the command cd.

cd {directory name}

2. Once there, make a top level directory using mkdir.

mkdir {directory name}

3. cd into it and make another directory called code.

cd {directory name}

mkdir code

4. cd into it and run your git clone {your repo url} command.

cd code

git clone {your repo url}

5. Now let's get into our directory so we can access the contents of the repo!

cd {your repo name}

Adding The FourthBrain Whodunit? Content to Your Repo

1. Check your remote git.

git remote -v

At this point, you should just have access to your own repo with an origin branch with both fetch and push options.

2. Let's setup our global configuration:

git config --global user.email "your email address"

git config --global user.name "your name"

3. Let's add a local branch for development.

git checkout -b LocalDev

You can change anything here in this branch!

git add .

Commit the changes with the branch addition.

git commit -m "Adding a LocalDev branch."

4. Let's push our local changes to our remote repo.

git checkout main

git merge LocalDev

git push origin main

5. Add the Whodunit (WD) repo as an extra remote repo:

git remote add WD [email protected]:FourthBrain/whodunit.git

Let's check our remote repos:

git remote -v

At this point, you should have access to both your own repo and FourthBrain and should see something like this:

WD    [email protected]:FourthBrain/whodunit.git (fetch)
WD    [email protected]:FourthBrain/whodunit.git (push)
origin [email protected]:rafatisina/TestRepo.git (fetch)
origin [email protected]:rafatisina/TestRepo.git (push)

Let's update our local repos:

git fetch --all

Make a new branch for the Whodunit material (WDBranch).

git checkout --track -b WDBranch WD/main

You should see something like this:

Branch 'WDBranch' set up to track remote branch 'main' from 'WD'.

You can visually check whether you are in that branch:

git log --all --graph

Now let's push our updated local repo to our remote repo!

git checkout main

git merge WDBranch --allow-unrelated-histories

If there are any conflicts you'll need to resolve them.

git add .

git commit -m "message-here"

git push origin main

From now on... after each release follow these steps to update your repo with new content:

git fetch --all
git checkout WDBranch
git merge --ff-only @{u}
git add .
git commit -m "branch is updated"
git checkout main
git merge WDBranch --allow-unrelated-histories

You will be asked to add a comment about why this change is necessary --> add a message.

git push origin main

Bringing it all together with Jupyter notebooks!

Jupyter notebooks

1. First, make sure that you are in your repo's main directory. Then navigate to the MLE-8 folder of your repo. HINT: You can use pwd to see the directory you're currently in.

2. Navigate to the notebooks folder within the software-dev-for-ml-101 folder.

cd software-dev-for-ml-101/notebooks

3. Activate your conda environment that you created above.

conda activate <YOUR ENV NAME HERE>

4. Run the jupyter notebook command.

5. A new window should open in your browser with the Jupyter Server. If not copy and paste the give link in your browser.

6. Open the unix-conda-pip.ipynb notebook and go through the demo.

Note: JupyterLab is an acceptable alternative to Jupyter Notebooks if you prefer JupyterLab!

🕵️ Whodunit?

Now let's practice what you have learned by playing the Whodunit? game!

That's it for now! And so it begins.... :)