assignment 1 : getting started
- Your main goal for this week is to be able to run python programs.
- You should expect to spend about 20 hours per week on this class.
If it comes easy to you, or you have experience with similar material already,
use the opportunity to explore related topics. If you have trouble and things
are going slowly, ask for help and do what you can. In either case, keep a
diary of what you're doing when. I'll be asking for summary reports later.
- Log into the course website with you Bennington credentials. Browse through what's there :
- Submit the beginnings of a response to this assignment, telling me
- What is your computer background?
- What sort of computer are you used to using?
- What are you hoping to get out if this class?
- What are you planning for your weekly schedule for working on this stuff?
- (The "umber" video may be helpful if you aren't sure how to submit work.)
- Log into jupyter.bennington.college with your Bennington credentials.
- Create a terminal ("New ... terminal").
- Work through at least parts 1, 2, and 3 of the software carpentry's
unix shell lesson.
The file you'll need is
data-shell.zip.
(Here's a local copy.) After saving that
to your computer, you can upload to the jupyterhub with the
"upload" button, and unpack it in the terminal with the command
"unzip data-shell.zip".
- Using what you can find in there,
- What does she have for atomic weight of oxygen?
- How many days of sunspot data does she have?
- (Hints: look up the "wc" and "grep -R" commands.)
- Describe what you did, what you learned, how well it worked or didn't.
- (The "jupyter" video shows how some of this works.)
- Read chapter 1 in our textbook.
- Run a "hello world" program and the chaos
problem from chapter 1 in the textbook. Try to use two
or three different python environments to do this, choosing from :
- the terminal at jupyter.bennington.college
- a jupyter notebook at jupyter.bennington.college
- the online pythontutor.com visualization tool
- on your own computer, installed from python.org
- Again, describe what you did, and how well it worked or didn't.
