Difficulty setting up conda environment

[izahn]

I followed the set up instructions, but got stuck at

 conda env create -f large_data_env.yml
Collecting package metadata (repodata.json): done
Solving environment: /
Found conflicts! Looking for incompatible packages.
This can take several minutes.  Press CTRL-C to abort.
failed

I think this happens because the rstudio package in the defaults channel hasn't been updated in several years, and its dependencies often conflict with other things. I recommend removing rstudio from large_data_env.yml and instructing people to install it from https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/#download instead.

I also notice that you mix packages from the defaults and conda-forge channels, which often doesn't work well. I recommend sticking with conda-forge as much as possible, e.g.,

name: large_data_in_R
channels:
  - conda-forge
dependencies:
  - r-base=4.0.*
  - r-lobstr
  - r-data.table
  - r-fst
  - r-hdf5r
  - r-arrow
  - r-vroom
  - ripgrep

[mbsabath]

This is a good point, for tomorrow I'll stick with the current implementation minus shifting the default packages to conda-forge, but for future versions of this course, a more complete change is the way to go, I'll leave this open until I make that change.