For work, I primarily use Python 3.x, R and occasionally Python 2.x. The toolset includes Jupyter Notebooks, R-Studio, Sublime Text, MySQL, MongoDB and Redis, MacDown, and a few others.

These are some of the steps I have taken in the recent past to setup a development environment on my Macbook, running MacOS Sierra. Most of it is through trial and error, and the generosity of StackOverflow users.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Terminal, but I do enjoy the ability to open a tab instead of a window, which is something iTerm2 provides me. Of course, other developers might have many other reasons to prefer one over the other, but for me it was down to this very minor issue. You can download it from iTerm2's website. There are multiple versions available for download, and I always opt for the stable release.

Homebrew just makes installing, managing and updating packages so much easier. There are others such as MacPorts, but I have grown used to Homebrew, and haven't looked at other options for quite some time now.

From Github:

• An Intel CPU 1
• OS X 10.10 or higher 2
• Command Line Tools (CLT) for Xcode: xcode-select --install, developer.apple.com/downloads or Xcode 3
• A Bourne-compatible shell for installation (e.g. bash or zsh) 4

Paste this into your terminal/iTerm2/Command Line Interface (henceforth iTerm2):

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

In the earlier versions of Homebrew, perhaps one had to go through the process of setting up Xcode Command Line Tools as well. In my recent clean install, I only entered the above command, and Homebrew also downloaded and installed Command Line Tools for me.

In case that is not true for you, you can install it with entering xcode-select --install in iTerm2.

After installation, we need to add /usr/local/bin to the $PATH environment variable by executing the following script in iTerm2:

echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

And you can read a good explanation of what that means on this link.

Restart iTerm2 after that, and then run these two commands, and run them often.

brew update
brew doctor

Typical syntax for usage is as follows:

brew install package_name

The instructions here are tailored for Github, so if you use Bitbucket or Gitlab, you might have to hunt around for more appropriate instructions. Also, all instructions assume you have a working Github account. Let's begin by installing git with the following command:

brew install git

Next, confirm that it has installed correctly, by calling the which git command, which should give you the response /usr/local/bin/git.

Then, we configure the system to work with Github.

git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"
git config --global user.email 	"[email protected]"

These have to be the same as your registered name and email on Github. Next, go to "Settings" in your Github account, select SSH and GPG keys, and click on "New SSH Key".

Now, on your iTerm2, execute the following:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]"

Next, enter a file name, or simply press enter:

Enter a file in which to save the key (/Users/you/.ssh/id_rsa): [Press enter]

Enter a password:

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type a passphrase]
Enter same passphrase again: [Type passphrase again]

Start the ssh-agent in the background:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

Add your SSH key to the ssh-agent :

ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Copy the key to your clipboard:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

And finaly, paste the key to Github page you have opened, and enter an identifier for your computer in the space named 'Title'.

And finally, execute these commands to exclude the .DS_Store files.

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore
echo *.DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore

You are all set to use Github.

Execute the next set of commands in iTerm2, to setup Python 2 and 3, along with iPython/Jupyter notebooks.

brew tap caskroom/cask
brew install brew-cask-completion

brew install python
brew install python3

brew tap Homebrew/python
brew install numpy --with-python3

brew install scipy --with-python3
brew install zeromq --with-python3

pip install jinja2, tornado, pyzmq, matplotlib
pip3 install jinja2, tornado, pyzmq, matplotlib

ARCHFLAGS=-Wno-error=unused-command-line-argument-hard-error-in-future pip install pandas
pip3 install pandas

pip install ipython
pip3 install ipython

pip install jupyter
pip3 install jupyter

brew cask install anaconda

Virtualenv creates an isolated Python environments for each project.

Different projects can be maintained in their respective folders, a bit like keeping cats and dogs in their own enclosures away from each other.

Execute the following line in iTerm2:

pip install virtualenv
pip3 install virtualenv

Run the following line in iTerm2:

brew install mysql

Also, as a best practice, I tend to always run brew update and brew doctor before and after any major installations.

To start MySQL Server, run the following command:

mysql.server start

To stop it, run:

mysql.server stop

There are many tools for this, but I prefer MySQL Workbench as a GUI tool. You can download this from this link.

As per Wikipedia, Redis is an open-source software project that implements data structure servers. It is networked, in-memory, and stores keys with optional durability.

Run the following command:

$ brew install redis

MongoDB is a free and open-source cross-platform document-oriented database program. Classified as a NoSQL database program, MongoDB uses JSON-like documents with schemas.

Run the following command:

$ brew install mongo

Of course, R is available via CRAN. However, I have noticed that installing it via CRAN, and adding R-Studio causes many issues with Homebrew. Follow the steps below to install R via Homebrew:

brew cask install xquartz
brew tap homebrew/science
brew install ‐‐with‐x11 r
brew cask install ‐‐appdir=/Applications rstudio

This will install R with XQuartz support, followed by installing R Studio with a copy of the application in the Applications folder.

MacDown is an open source Markdown editor for macOS, released under the MIT License. Install with the following command:

brew cask install macdown