lab00 : Getting Started

num ready? description assigned due
lab00 true Getting Started Thu 09/27 04:00PM Tue 10/02 11:59PM

If you find typos or problems with the lab instructions, please report them on Piazza

Step 0: Getting oriented

Chances are you are already familiar with all of the following because you already took CS courses that used this stuff (i.e. CS8, CS16, CS24, CS32).

If not–if for example, you are a transfer student and this is your first CS course using the CSIL Lab resources, please let your TA know and he/she will help you find resources to come up to speed on these things. Or, your TA can assign you a pair partner that knows this stuff and doesn’t mind helping you come up to speed.

The rest of these instructions will assume you know all of the above. If not, then let your TA know, and we’ll point you to resources where you can come up to speed.

As a separate item, you should also know how to connect to CSIL from your own computer (PC/Mac/Linux)

But, you don’t need that for today’s lab—so let’s continue.

The rest of the lab: Step-by-Step

Step 1: Create a CoE account if you don’t have one already

We encourage you to complete all programming assignments by logging in to the machines in the Computer Science labs, or to connect remotely. To do this you will need a College of Engineering account. You can create an account online at https://accounts.engr.ucsb.edu/create.

If you are enrolled in any CoE course this quarter (including CS56), you should be able to create your account immediately.

If you are not able to do so, you will need to contact the ECI Help Desk at help@engineering.ucsb.edu.

Step 2: Get setup with github and add yourself to our organization

We will be using github.com in this course. We have created an organization called on github.com where you can create repositories (repos) for your assignments in this course.

The advantage of creating private repos under this organization is that the course staff (your instructors and TAs) will be able to see your code and provide you with help, without you having to do anything special.

To join this organization, you need to do three things.

  1. If you don’t already have a github.com account, create one on the “free” plan. Visit https://github.com/

  2. If you don’t already have your @umail.ucsb.edu email address associated with your github.com account. go to “settings”, add that email, and confirm that email address.

  3. Visit our Github Sign Up Tool at https://ucsb-cs-github-linker.herokuapp.com/. Navigate to https://ucsb-cs-github-linker.herokuapp.com/. Login with your github.com account. Click “Home”, find this course (CS56, F18), and click the “Join course button”. That will automatically send you an invitation to join the course organization on github.

  4. There should be a link to the invitation for the GitHub organization for this course (https://github.com/). Click on the invitation link and accept it. You can also go straight to https://github.com/ and see the invitation there (if you’re logged in). Accept the invitation that appears in your browser (from step 3) or log into your account on https://github.com/ to accept the invitation.

Step 3: Get setup with gradescope

We will use gradescope to grade all your homeworks, exams and lab/programming assignments. I have manually added everyone (using your @umail.ucsb.edu accounts) currently enrolled in the course to the Gradescope system. You should have received an email notification with instructions about logging into gradescope. Once you follow the instructions to set your password, you should have access to our course on Gradescope. You should see CS56 in your F18 courses.

The lab assignment lab00 should appear in your Gradescope dashboard in CS56. You will need to submit your code for lab00 using this page.

Step 4: Set up your github.ucsb.edu account.

Visit https://github.ucsb.edu and login with your CSIL account, to establish your github.ucsb.edu account. We may or may not use that account this quarter, but we want to be sure that you’ve established that account in case we need it. Just loggin in and logging out once establishes the account.

Step 5: Some Java coding

  1. Login to your CSIL account, and create a ~/cs56 subdirectory.

  2. In that directory, use your favorite text editor (e.g. vim, emacs) to create a file containing the following code. Call the file Hello.java. Put your name instead of Your Name Here.

(Side note: if you prefer it, two new editors are now available on CSIL staring Summer 2018: atom and visual studio code.)

   /**
     @author Your Name Here
   */

   public class Hello {

     public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
     }

   }

NOTE: Please don’t put literally Your Name Here in the code above. Write your actual name. Thanks!

  1. Compile the file with the command javac Hello.java

  2. Run the file with the command java Hello

  3. Navigate to https://gradescope.com. You should have an account invitation in your email. If you don’t, ask an instructor, TA or mentor for assistance.

  4. Upload your work to Gradescope.com for grading. If you are working from your own machine (i.e. ssh’ing into CSIL), you’ll need to transfer the file to your own machine before you can upload it for grading.
  5. Once you see that you have a score of 100 for the lab on Gradescope, you are done with lab00. If lab01 is ready, start on lab01. Otherwise, ask a mentor or TA whether there is anything else to do today before you just take off.