NEWS Official Notice Board CSCI-E26

   Students, please check this page regularly for announcements as of: 14 Jul 19:54

13 Jul    VS-Code and ssh

Unix is a powerful programming environment. The system contains hundreds of power tools to process data. The Unix shell is the program that gives you access and control of all these tools. Being a skilled/effective Unix programmer/administrator/user requires comfort and fluency using the shell. This fluency includes knowing how to work with files, and to write, edit, compile, run, and test programs. Within a Unix shell environment.

VS code is a very user-friendly, powerful text editor which provides access to a Unix shell. With co-pilot installed, VS Code will even write code for you. But do not do that for class assignments. But, if you market yourself for jobs that want someone who can do Unix/C programming, you will be expected to know how to work in the shell.

Use any editor and development IDE you like, but you must also learn how to work in a pure Unix environment with Unix editors, compilers, debuggers, file management tools.

06 Jul    Read This: Roman Aqueducts and Co-Pilot

Read: https://generativeai.pub/the-junior-developer-extinction-were-all-building-the-next-programming-dark-age-f66711c09f25. There will be a quiz on this during the term.
18 Jul    Welcome to CSCI-E26

Welcome to the website for CSCI-E26: Introduction to C, Unix/Linux Programming, with Web Interfaces The course begins on Wednesday, September 3, 2024 at 7:40PM.

Course Prerequisites We expect students to have a good knowledge of programming; the course introduces programming in C/Unix/CGI, not programming itself. Try these exercises to be sure you are not getting in over your head.

You may write solutions to those problems in any language. You may email your solutions to molay at fas.harvard.edu . I will review your work and can tell you if you seem prepared for E26.

If you have questions about the course, please write to the instructor: Bruce Molay (molay at fas.harvard.edu).

18 Jul    Pre-Course Setup

When you have enrolled in E26, follow the steps in this document: Starting26.html to set up your account, VPN, and other tools.
29 Aug    Preparation: Hours and Difficulty

One part of preparation is making sure you have the time to do the work. These two images from course evaluations for 2023 and 2024 show what students reported as the amount of work the course required and the level of difficulty.

Fall 2023
Fall 2024: only 5 replies