Link to this document's Jupyter Notebook

In order to successfully complete this assignment you must do the required reading, watch the provided videos and complete all instructions. The embedded survey form must be entirely filled out and submitted on or before 11:59pm on Thursday January 21. Students must come to class the next day prepared to discuss the material covered in this assignment.


Pre-Class Assignment: Getting Started on the HPCC

Goals for today's pre-class assignment

  1. vi (or vim) : ASCII (text) editor
  2. Manual Pages
  3. Assignment wrap-up

1. vi (or vim) : ASCII (text) editor

vim command modes

Image from: https://colbrydi.github.io/quick-graphviz-tutorial.html

Next we are going to do some editing of a file using the vim command. Do not be fooled by the simple text interface. Vim is an extremely powerful text editor used by advanced programmers around the world. Since vim can be found on practically any Linux system (from Raspberry Pis to super computers) it is a great editor to know and have in your back pocket.

Watch the following video for a brief introduction to vim:

DO THIS: Use your favorite search engine to find a VI cheat sheet. What is the URL for the VIM Cheat Sheet that you found?

Put a URL to your cheat sheet here.


2. Manual Pages

The following video is a short introduction to the man command. The instructor is "old school" and before watching this video had never used the info command or knew about the -k option to the man command. Both things seem very useful. Watch the following video and answer the questions below.

QUESTION: What does the -k option for the man command?

Put your answer to the above question here.

QUESTION: How do you quit the man command?

Put your answer to the above question here.

QUESTION: How do you search inside the man command?

Put your answer to the above question here.

QUESTION: How do you quit inside the info command?

Put your answer to the above question here.

QUESTION: How do you search inside the info command?

Put your answer to the above question here.


3. Assignment wrap-up

Please fill out the form that appears when you run the code below. You must completely fill this out in order to receive credits for the assignment!

Direct Link to Google Form

If you have trouble with the embedded form, please make sure you log on with your MSU google account at googleapps.msu.edu and then click on the direct link above.

Assignment-Specific QUESTION: Copy and paste the URL for the vi cheat sheet you found here.

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: Summarize what you did in this assignment.

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: What questions do you have, if any, about any of the topics discussed in this assignment after working through the jupyter notebook?

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: How well do you feel this assignment helped you to achieve a better understanding of the above mentioned topic(s)?

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: What was the most challenging part of this assignment for you?

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: What was the least challenging part of this assignment for you?

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: What kind of additional questions or support, if any, do you feel you need to have a better understanding of the content in this assignment?

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: Do you have any further questions or comments about this material, or anything else that's going on in class?

Put your answer to the above question here

QUESTION: Approximately how long did this pre-class assignment take?

Put your answer to the above question here


Congratulations, we're done!

To get credit for this assignment you must fill out and submit the above survey from on or before the assignment due date.

Course Resources:

Written by Dr. Dirk Colbry, Michigan State University Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.