Assignment 0: Git oriented

Assignment written by Maria Paula Hernandez, CS107e TA

Due: Tuesday, January 14 at 5:00 pm

This assignment is not for a grade, but it's critical that you complete it on-time and understand the steps in the workflow you will be using for all assignments. If you run into troubles, please reach out on Ed or come by office hours!

Goals

Your goal for this assignment is two-fold:

  1. Walk through and understand the git workflow we use in this course
  2. Practice with your tools and refresh on background concepts

This assignment will give you practice with the standard tasks of getting starter code, editing files, committing changes, and submitting your work.

Have our Git Workflow Guide open in another browser tab. You will be following along with the section "Assignment Workflow" of the guide.

Steps

0. Choose your editor and configure for use with git

In Lab 0, we asked you to explore text editors like vim and emacs. You will be making heavy use of your chosen editor, so now is a good time to invest in becoming comfortable and efficient with it. This can be in the form of watching tutorial videos, reading manuals, bringing questions to OH, sharing tips with each other, and practicing on your own.

Some git commands automatically open a text editor on your behalf. If you have not set an editor in your git config, it uses a default choice. Which editor does git use as its default? Is this your preferred editor? If it is not, you can configure git to use the editor you prefer with the following command:

$ git config --global core.editor [NAME-OF-YOUR-PREFERRED-EDITOR]

1. Pull starter code

To get the starter files, follow the instructions "Pull assignment starter code" in the Git Workflow Guide.

Pulling the starter code adds a new subfolder named assign0 to your mycode repo. This folder contain the starter files for the assignment.

2. Answer background questions

In the assign0 subfolder, find the file named background.txt and open it in your editor.

Add answers to the following questions. Make sure each your response is clearly labeled (i.e. we know what question it corresponds to) and reasonably organized.

Tip If you're stuck on any of the questions, take a look at the guides section of the course website, post on Ed, or start reading some articles online!

  1. What is the result of performing a bitwise OR of the following two hexadecimal numbers (include the result in decimal): 0x0f OR 0xff. Now left shift that number by 24; what is the result in hexadecimal? Assume numbers are 32-bit.

  2. How many milliamperes of current will flow through a 1.5K resistor connected to 3V on one end and 0V (Ground) on the other end?

  3. Find a file in the directory /etc on your computer; tell us the name of the file and the number of bytes contained in that file. How many files and directories are contained in the first level of directory /etc? Show the the commands you used to answer this question.

  4. Explain difference between an absolute and relative path.

  5. What do ~, ., .., represent? What happens when you pass them as arguments to the cd command?

  6. Change directory to your mycode repo and find the folder named cs107e. What is the absolute path to this folder? How can you quickly change to this directory using the CS107E environment variable you created during your environment setup? Poke around in the cs107e folder to familiarize yourself to what files it contains. Try out the pinout.py command.

  7. What editor are you using? What is your plan on learning how to best use your chosen editor? (i.e. for people using vim, you can run the vimtutor command from your terminal). Confirm you have configured git to use your chosen editor.

  8. Explain what it means to have something on $PATH.

  9. Start planning the arrangement of windows and tools you are going to want in your environment and the workflow you will use. We want you to come up with a setup that works for you, for sure you want to be able to keep multiple terminals open, i.e edit code in one window and compile/execute in another without ever closing out your editor. We cannot stress enough how much time and pain this will save you. Also, learn the key bindings so you can quickly switch between your code and your shell, without reaching for your mouse. Tell us what your setup you are using and the commands to switch between windows/tabs/panes.

  10. Unix has many many useful commands, below is a list of a few that we feel everyone should know. You can run man [command] in your terminal to see the manual page and learn more. For each command give us a short description of what it does (in your own words) and an example of how you would use it. If there are options for the command try a few out and tell us about any you think would be useful (i.e rm has an option -r which makes rm recursive allowing you to delete a directory not just a file. Be careful with that one btw, there's no getting your directory back!). Commands to know: cd, pwd, ls, cat, mkdir, rmdir, touch, rm, echo.

  11. Type the prefix of a valid command into the shell and stop half-way and type Tab. What happens? Try using tab complete when entering with the path argument to a command such as cd.

  12. Again start typing in a command, before finishing this time hit ctrl-c , what happens?

  13. Try running sleep 10, then enter ctrl-c , what happens?

  14. What does ctrl-r do in terminal and why is this useful? How about the up arrow ?

  15. In git speak, what is a "commit"? What is a "branch"? If you're unsure, refer to our git guide.

  16. If there are resources (tutorials, blogs, videos, books, etc.) that you are finding particularly helpful as you get oriented with the environment and tools, tell us about them here and please share with everyone on our Ed forum!

Save your edits to background.txt and exit your editor.

3. Commit your changes locally and push to remote

Follow the instructions in "Assignment commit" of the Git Workflow Guide to git commit a local snapshot, followed by git push to sync those changes to your remote repo.

After you do this, both the local and repo repositories should be up to date. Browse the dev branch of your remote repo on GitHub to confirm it is in sync.

4. Make submit tag

Apply the tag assign0-submit to indicate these files are the ones to grade. Follow the instructions in the section "Assignment Tags" in Git Workflow Guide to create and push a tag.

Browse your remote repo on GitHub https://github.com and confirm that your new tag is listed.

5. Add photo file and edit README with your info

What's missing? A cherished course tradition is creating a Wall of Fame in Gates B02 to introduce all members of our community to one another. We want to include you on our wall!

Find a photo of yourself that you would like to share. Copy this photo file into your assign0 folder.

Edit the README.md file in the assign0 folder to include the following information:

  1. Your preferred name and pronouns
  2. Your hometown
  3. Your year and major

Add both the photo file and README.md to the staging index. Commit and push to your remote repo.

6. Move submit tag

To indicate this updated commit should replace your previous submission, move the submit tag. Read the section "Assignment Tags" in the Git Workflow Guide for instructions on how to move a tag.

Browse your remote repo on GitHub and confirm that your submit tag is placed on the commit which contains the correct content for all three files (background.txt, README.md, and your photo file).

Success!

You have now successfully navigated the full assignment workflow:

  • pull starter files
  • edit files
  • add and commit changes
  • push to remote
  • make submit tag
  • update submission and move tag
  • confirm results on remote repo on Github

And you're ready for the further adventures to come.