We'll be using Python 3. Python 2 and 3 are not compatible, and a lot of older code uses Python 2 (for example, MacOS doesn't even come with 3).
Anacadonda Python is a huge download, but it comes with lots of stuff pre-installed: https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/install/index.html
You could edit Python in TextEdit or Notepad, but text editors that are made specifically for writing code are a lot more useful.
- Visual Studio Code. MacOS, Windows, & Linux - Open Source. From Microsoft, but cross-platform and free. It seems to be bundled with Anaconda. I haven't used it, but it's supposed to be good.
- Atom. MacOS, Windows, & Linux - Open Source. I mostly use Atom.
- Sublime Text MacOS, Windows, & Linux - $80 Better Python support than Atom. Costs money, but you can try free for as long as you can tolerate being nagged to buy.
- XCode. MacOS only. Big and confusing, not all that useful. But better than TextEdit.
An alternative to using a text editor. Write little blocks of code, then execute and see the results in your browser. It's a web app, but people often run it on their own computer (it comes with Anaconda).
Version control - it keeps track of different versions of your files.
Specifically for transcribing historical documents. Part of the EU-funded READ Project, the only people I know doing text recognition of complicated handwritten documents. Their code is available on GitHub
What we've been using I'll talk to Dawn about how to set up a project.
Also just noticed this project transcribing Shakespeare's manuscripts. I'm not sure I can make out any of the handwriting, and since it isn't our project we wouldn't get access to the data anyway, but it's probably be worth looking at to see how they do things.