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 16.
PCA 03: Getting Started on the HPCC#
Goals for today’s pre-class assignment#
vi (or vim) : ASCII (text) editor or emacs as an editor
1A. vi (or vim) : ASCII (text) editor#
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.
In a terminal vindow type
vimtutor. The tutorial will open as a text file. Navigate through the text document and follow the tutorial to explore usage of vim.
✅ DO THIS: Write below some of the things that you learned that you think will be useful.
Write useful things you learned here.
✅ 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.
1B. emacs : ASCII (text) editor#
Emacs is another text editor that is available on almost all linux / unix based systems.
To start the Emacs tutorial, start Emacs (by typing emacs in a terminal window) and type C-h t, that is, Ctrl-h followed by t.
✅ 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.
✅ DO THIS: Now that you have briefly explore both vim and emacs, do you have a favorite of the two? If so, what do you like more about your favorite?
Write your opinion here
2. Manual Pages#
The following video is a short introduction to the man command. Watch the following video and answer the questions below.
from IPython.display import YouTubeVideo
YouTubeVideo("SjPV9BET_UM",width=640,height=360)
✅ 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!
✅ 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
from IPython.display import HTML
HTML(
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Congratulations, we’re done!#
To get credit for this assignment you must fill out and submit the above survey before the assignment due date.
Written by Dr. Dirk Colbry, Michigan State University (Updated by Dr. Nathan Haut in Spring 2025)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.