Week 1

Homework

• Set up Github, Twitter, and try out corn.stanford.edu
• Collect the list of White House Press Briefings (for next Wednesday)

Using Github

We don't need Github for the current assignment, but if your compciv repo was set up correctly, you should be able to take the following steps.

1. Log into corn.stanford.edu

2. "Clone" the repo, i.e. download it, from Github into your home directory

    git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/compciv.git
   

Some tips

Remember the story of Pixar and Toy Story 2:

When in doubt, hit Ctrl-C

It's easy to forget the exact syntax of the commands. For example, this is correct:

  grep "some text" file.txt

And this is technically correct:

  grep "some text"

…except that it'll seem as if the program has just halted. It's actually waiting for your input, since you didn't tell it what file to search. In cases like these, when hitting Enter doesn't bring you to the prompt, hitting Ctrl-C will break out of whatever construct you've gotten yourself into unintentionally.

Keyboard shortcuts

As you use the command-line more often, you'll want to get figure out faster ways to get around. The ones I use the most are:

• up arrow - This goes through the history of your commands. If you want to re-run a command you just ran, hit up and hit Enter again.
• Tab - Hitting Tab acts as an autocomplete. This is great when you're in a directory and know that a file starts with, "h", but don't know the full name.
• Ctrl-A - If you've written a long line, but want to get right to the beginning, hit __Ctrl-A** and the cursor will jump to the beginning.
• Ctrl-E - similarly, Ctrl-E will take you to the end of the line. I remember it as "E" standing for "end"

There's more shortcuts and power-tools here, via Sam Rowe.

Class logistics (Jan. 7, 2015)

If you were having trouble with the setup-prep assignment, please email me or talk to me after class and we'll get it fixed up.

The assignment for Monday is collecting the list of White House Press Briefings.

Class logistics (Jan. 5, 2015)

On Wednesday, I'll focus on showing more of the details and mechanics of working with data from the command line and general programming concepts. To prepare:

• Go through the Software Carpentry lessons on The Unix Shell. You may not understand most of it on first read, but you'll be less confused when watching me go through examples on Wednesday.
• If you have a copy of the Data Science at the Command Line textbook, read Chapter 1.
• Noah Veltman of WNYC has produced a useful guide to the command-line, aimed at journalists. The concepts are the same as in Software Carpentry's guide, but with a different tack.
• Stanford also has a free online, video-based course on Practical Unix

If this is all new to you, I don't expect you to "get" it on your first read-through. Or even by next week. But I want you to be familiar with it, so that it becomes less and less intimidating with each lesson.