Today you are going to learn how to use your computer and stuff! Specifically we will be talking about the following:

• How to use your terminal
  • how to manage your file system with your terminal
  • how to run programs with your terminal
  • how to use the python/ipython shell
• How to do version control
  • git
    • git cli
  • github
• How to use a package manager
  • installing brew for mac ppl, and using it to download
  • e.g. installing a better terminal:
  • brew install cask
  • brew cask install iterm2
• Make a “big” project (i.e. project with multiple files) in python

Terminal Usage

First open your terminal application. (powershell on windows, terminal on mac / linux)

Useful commands:

• pwd (print working directory)
• ls (list directory contents)
• cd (change directory)
• mv (move)
• cp (copy)
• rm (remove)
• touch (make a file)
• cat (print file contents)
• mkdir (make a directory)

On Mac you can type man cp (for instance) to learn what a command does, or you can google it.

Problem 1

Make a directory with a bunch of subdirectories and have each of those have a bunch of subdirectories with files in them. Do it with the terminal, explore it with ls / cd and mv. Also look at it in your IDE and in your finder/ file explorer.

Problem 2

Navigate to a directory where you have some coronacodingclub code stored. Run it with python from the terminal.

Problem 3

Type python / python3 in your terminal. You are now in the python shell. This is a different environment from the rest of the terminal (type exit() to exit the python shell). In the python shell you can run commands. Try doing some arithmetic (or bit arithmetic :)) in the shell, and other basic things, e.g. test list slicing. You shouldn’t write long programs in the shell but its great for testing simple things without making a file.

Problem 4

You can even interact with the system with python via the os and sys libraries.

Try interacting with your file system from the python shell! e.g. os.system("ls"); os.system("cd XXX"); os.system("pwd")

Problem 5

Make a github account

Problem 6

Make a github repo for your coronacoding club code.

Problem 6.5

Make sure your coorna coding club local file system is very organized e.g. the root directory (which should be on your desktop) has a folder for the different days, and within each of these folders you have code from the problems for those days (note: it’s ok to have all the problems in a single file for each day too, in this case maybe you don’t need a very complex file structure. But you could still make a subdirectory for notes or something. And having a directory per day could be good especially if you want to generate files like graphics and text files).

Problem 7

Using the git cli, push your coronacodingclub stuff to your github repo

Hint: here are some useful commands

• git add .
• git commit -m "message"
• git status
• git pull origin master
• git push origin master
• git log
• git clone xxx

Problem 7.5

Fork Alek’s coronacoding github repo, make a local copy of it, make an edit (e.g. fix a typo, there are a lot of them!) and figure out how to issue a pull request, and make alek merge your pull request.

Problem 8

If you are on a mac, run the following in your terminal: (install brew, a package manager, and then install iterm2, a terminal replacement)

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
brew install cask
brew cask install iterm2

Now use iterm2 instead of Mac’s default terminal. Because it’s better.

Problem 9

Get zsh

brew install zsh
sudo sh -c "echo $(which zsh) >> /etc/shells" && chsh -s $(which zsh)

You can read about zsh here

Problem 10

Make a “big” project (i.e. project with multiple files) in python. Import a python function that you write in one of the files into another file! e.g. write a gcd computing function in one file, and then have a bunch of other number theory files that use it, e.g. a file to create the lcm(i,j) graphic on the coronacoding club homepage.

Problem 11

Set up the subl command. reference website