Hi, Marshall.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. Yes, it is definitely the case that everything mutates very rapidly in this space and in python packages in general and that can cause “versionitis” problems. Whereas it is in the nature of online courses like this that they are published at a particular point in time and get “major” upgrades that would deal with things like changing package versions typically only every couple of years at most. The last such upgrade for DLS was in April of 2021, when they rewrote things using TF2 instead of TF1. I can try suggesting that they add something about this, but it sort of opens a can of worms: how far do they have to go in addressing what it takes to get things to actually work in every possible student’s environment? It would not surprise me if they elected just to drop the subject. In fact, I don’t remember that they ever say anything about running the notebooks in a different environment, do they? Please correct me if I just missed it …
There have been a number of threads on Discourse around the question of how to run things in your own environment. E.g, this one or this one or this one.