Reading homeworks

This is the first of many homeworks we will have which don’t ask you to write code or solve any problems, but rather to read something from one of our textbooks and answer a few response questions in markdown.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Being able to read technical things about doing data science is an extremely important skill. Data science is a quickly-evolving field, and if you want to use any of your hard-earned knowledge and practice in the future, you are likely going to have to read about new software or technologies.

• Reading technical things is sometimes hard, and that’s okay! Don’t expect to read a computing book or blog post the way you would read a novel. For example, it’s not uncommon to want to read “non-linearly”, frequently skipping back to remember what something means, or even scanning ahead to understand the context later on. And you should expect to read slowly, sometimes re-reading the same part a few times very carefully to try and comprehend what it is saying or to grasp the details.

• …but the textbooks we are reading are aimed at your knowledge level. The reading we are assigning is for undergraduates who are just beginning their exploration of data science, Python, and the command line. You have the background needed to understand it if you are patient with yourself and willing to read slowly.

• Trying examples and taking notes as you go along is highly encouraged. Many times the concept seems less confusing when you try it yourself rather than having it explained. In fact, one of the most useful things about a good textbook or tutorial is to tell us what examples we should try to get started on a new topic.

• Questions are great! If you understood nothing from an assigned reading, you need to see your instructor for EI and talk about better strategies. But if you complete a reading and still feel fuzzy or confused about some aspects, that is fantastic! Then you can bring those questions to class where we will fill in the gaps and reinforce as needed.

Readings

For this HW, you will read the first two chapters from The Linux Command Line:

• TLCL Chapter 1 “What is the shell”
• TLCL Chapter 2 “Navigation”

I also recommend you take a look at the intro chapter to Data Science at the Command Line, put this is optional. (It is longer, but much less technical, more of an overview of “why” we are doing this):

• DSACL Chapter 1 “Introduction” (optional)

Response questions

Fill in this md file and submit it.

1. What happens if we enter an incorrect command in the terminal?

   1. The computer crashes
   2. The terminal exits immediately
   3. You see an error message with what line the error was on, then the terminal exits
   4. bash gives an error message and then keeps going with another prompt like nothing even happened

   (Give just the letter of the correct choice.)

2. What command is used to show the files in the current directory?

3. What command is used to quit the terminal?

4. Which of these are NOT valid commands?

   1. ls
   2. bye
   3. cd
   4. date
   5. pwn

   (Enter all the letters of the correct responses.)

Submit command

To submit files for this homework, run one of these commands:

submit -c=sd212 -p=hw04 hw04.md 
club -csd212 -phw04 hw04.md