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by fergie 654 days ago
Are you familiar with Software Carpentry? If so, what do you think about it? -> https://www.ub.uio.no/english/libraries/dsc/carpentry-uio/
1 comments

If you visit the link https://swcarpentry.github.io/python-novice-inflammation/ which offers the introduction to Python, you'll find this strange statement.

> Although one can install a plain-vanilla Python and all required libraries by hand, we recommend installing Anaconda ...

In a novice course, if the official version of Python and its tools all work, why is this organization recommending a product from a for-profit organization that requires acceptance of some complex and potentially costly provisions in its terms of use?

As much as I would rather not associate with these people (to stay polite), especially in an educational context, note that you do see people recommending the use of VSCode / Github / Windows / MacOS here all the time, all of which are orders of magnitude worse than Anaconda.