Getting Started

Before we can start you’ll need to install Python + PyCharm Community Edition. It’ll help point out any errors in your script and offer useful suggestions for your code. A zip archive with all the project files can be found here.

1. Install Python

Linux

• Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install python3

• Arch: sudo pacman -S python3

• RHEL: sudo yum install -y python3

macOS

• Download: https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.12.4/python-3.12.4-macos11.pkg (Source)

You’ll also need to install the certifi package afterwards to handle SSL connections to the RPC servers.

Windows

• Download: https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.12.4/python-3.12.4-amd64.exe (Source)

You will also need Microsoft C++ Build Tools. Install “Desktop development with C++” which takes up about 6.42 GB.

Windows also needs UTF-8 enabled because 414 likes to use weird characters for token names/symbols.

2. Install PyCharm Community Edition

Go to https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/download/ and scroll down. Download the Community Edition.

Make sure you get the free Community Edition!

It will should detect the correct operating system for you, or you can click one of these links:

• Linux

• macOS

• Windows

Install and run it, accept any terms/user agreements. Your main screen should look like this:

3. Creating your first project

Let’s name this one “affection-bots”.

Your project folder will look like this. It contains some default files inside “.venv” which PyCharm uses. You can collapse that folder and ignore it from now on.

I’ve included a zip archive with some files to get started. Extract the contents into your project folder.

4. Install packages

Click this button in the bottom left to open the Terminal panel.

Type this to install a few packages we’ll be using:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Give it a few seconds and it should complete without errors.

Now we can start cooking. In the next section we’ll look at what functions I’ve included for you to use.