Day 1 - Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Note: These Day-by-Day pages give a detailed overview of how the time was used in each class meeting. This is meant primarily as an archive for me (J. Klay) for when I teach the course again, but can also be used to stimulate ideas for other instructors.


Summary: Welcome, overview, Pre-learner Survey, UNIX Shell introduction, Codecademy sign-up


  1. Introduction/April Fool's Joke
    • "Fortran 42" - so much science software written in it
    • Need to buy a compiler license, only $242
    • :-)
  2. Enrollment
  3. Pre-learner Survey
  4. Course syllabus
  5. Overview of tools
    • Python (why? vs. Matlab, Mathematica, C/C++, etc.)
    • UNIX Shell
    • Git/github
  6. UNIX Shell introduction
    • pwd, ls, cd, mkdir, nano
    • Case sensitivity of filenames
    • What files/directories look like
    • File system hierarchy
    • Have them make a directory PHYS202-S14 (will become a github repo on Thursday)
    • In their new directory, have them use nano to create the pledge file for the repository
  7. Codecademy signup with <CPUID> or <CPUID>202
    • Assignment by Thursday is the first seven modules of the Python track
      • Python syntax
        • 1. Python syntax
        • 2. Tip calculator
      • Strings and Console Output
        • 3. Strings and Console Output
        • 4. Date and time
      • Conditionals and Control Flow (so they'll be ready for PE1)
        • 5. Conditionals and Control Flow
        • 6. Pyglatin
    • Let them work on Codecademy in class for a bit

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