As someone who has very minimal knowledge about how this works, do I need to download packages into my computer? Is it possible to do everything in the cloud?
Is it possible to run python numerical calculations using conda cloud?
It seems like just from playing around/ practicing I ran out of CPU space? This is all very new to me.
Hi Alexa and welcome to the community!
It will depend on the type of work you’re trying to do, but you can do quite a bit in the cloud. The Anaconda Notebooks service provides you with hosted Jupyter to write code, experiment, and even share your work. It also comes pre-configured with a large number of common conda packages, so most python numerical calculations should just work without having to install anything. If you do need to add packages on the cloud service we offer the ability to create your own environments in addition to the ones provided by the service.
However, depending on the type of work you’d like to do a local install could be needed.
I’d love to know more about the type of work you’re doing and/or what problem/task you’re trying to complete, so we can offer the best guidance. I’d also like to know more about what you were doing when you ran out of CPU. The amount provided for free is generally enough to practice every day, but am interested in learning more about your use case.
Thanks for the questions!
Hi Steve!
Thanks so much for your speedy response!
I am looking for a platform that is relatively easy to use for me to solve equations and formulas for a course titled: MITx 6.419x Data Analysis: Statistical Modeling and Computation in Applications. I am not very well versed in advanced math or in coding, so I am looking for sort of a plug and chug feature in python that will help me solve equations quickly.
I was using the assistant feature a lot and putting a lot of commands in the notebook. Could that have done with it? That’s good to know it should be enough for daily use. I wasn’t sure and went ahead and installed anaconda locally too in case in I needed to install additional packages. All of this is super new to me so appreciate your guidance.
I took a quick look at the course materials online and though it’s hard to say for sure, since there are no python code samples for the course work available, most if not all of the functionality/topics in the course should available “out of the box” via the packages in the Anaconda Installer or Anaconda Cloud Notebooks. Where you do your computation/experimentation really just depends on how you want to write your code. If you want to use Jupyter Notebooks to write python code for the class, cloud notebooks is a nice easy way to do that from anywhere. However, if you’d like more IDE options or want to be able to write code when you’re offline, a local install would be great. You can also do both 
Regarding the compute limits, there are two to be aware of. The Anaconda Assistant is our AI chat assistant and you get a limited number of requests per day (more with a subscription). The notebook service itself also has a daily limit for python computation. Looking at the coursework, you should be able to do that all in your daily compute quota unless you’re doing ML work and/or have very large data sets.
Hopefully that helps and good luck with your course!