In the installing Matplotlib Section, we can document the installation procedure separately for Windows and Mac for better understanding.
NOTE: You need to install latest version of Python before you install Matplotlib
On a Mac Laptop
Step 1: After Python is installed, Open a new Terminal App in (Application/Utilities) window
Step 2: Install pip using command “ python -m pip install -U pip”
Step 3: Install Matplotlib using command “ python -m pip install -U matplotlib”
Step 4: Wait for few minutes. All the required libraries would be installed.
On a Windows Laptop
Step 1: After Python is installed, Open “ Command Prompt ”
Step 2: Type in “Command Prompt” in search box
Step 3: Now, install pip using command “ python -m pip install -U pip”
Step 4: Now, Install Matplotlib using command “ python -m pip install -U matplotlib”
Step 5: Wait for few minutes, All required libraries would be installed
I would like to suggest the team to document a separate installation procedure for each operating system Windows, Mac, Linux. Waiting for your feedback
I am not sure we should be providing detailed instructions of how to find the terminal on OSX or windows. Would we also do the same for all of the flavors of linux desktop manager? Should we also go into how to use virtual environments and all of the ways people manage them?
While I see how that could be useful for new-to-Python users, however for users who do already know how to use the shell / Python / pip this level of detail can be more confusing (if I see install instructions that are not just pip install XYZ I start looking for why and assume the package is doing something very non-standard). There is value in highlighting that via pip the installation process is the same on all
Is there a link to a tutorial (preferably from upstream CPython or pypa) that we can link to instead? That is probably the best path here. For absolute new users we redirect them to a much more through resource to help them get started without distracting more experienced users with too much detail.
Yes, we can do the things from level 0, So, the new users don’t need to move to any other platform for a particular topic. They get a complete detail over here only.
The set of things a brand-new-to-programming users needs is much larger than we can reasonably maintain in our docs. We should keep our docs focused on Matplotlib and provide links to other resources for the prerequisites.