MAT 420 Online Course Supplements

Online course supplements

Introduction to Unix (from Ohio State Univ.)

Bash ("Bourne-Again shell") Reference Manual. Bash and the Korn shell are well designed, widely available, and conform to the POSIX standard, developed by the IEEE and The Open Group and endorsed by the International Standards Organization.
The "C" shell and its derivatives, such as tcsh, are alternative shells. While adequate for interactive use, they are not recommended for programming.

Python tutorial (or as a PDF file)
Python library reference (or as a PDF file)
A Windows version of Python can be downloaded from the Python download site.

GNU Make

IEEE 754 Floating-Point Standard

Other software and links of interest

Disclaimer: Although the links below point to sites that I believe are reputable, there is no guarantee that the software programs referenced below are free of bugs and viruses, that they can be installed without damaging your computer or data, or that the Web sites themselves are free of malicious software. Install and use these programs at your own risk.

The Python web page includes free downloads of Python for Windows machines, in case you would rather develop Python programs on your own PC. Note to Mac users: The version of Python on OS X 10.4 is 2.3.5. You can download version 2.5.1 from the Python web page.

SSH client for Windows (use this to connect from a Windows PC to the ECA computers)

Besides the shell and Python, which we'll describe in class, there's Awk, which is a wonderful tool for quick "one-liner" programs.

Two other important scripting languages are Perl and Ruby. In particular, Ruby on Rails has become a popular Web development tool. I encourage you to explore one or both of them if you would like to learn more about some of the complex tasks that are handled entirely by scripts rather than conventional compiled languages.

The G95 compiler. This is a free, open-source Fortran 95 compiler written mostly by ASU alum Andy Vaught. Binaries are available for most platforms.

Intel's Fortran and C++ compilers. A free, unsupported Linux version is available for noncommercial, educational use. Student pricing is available. As far as I know, ASU does not have a campus site license for Intel's compilers.

Sun Microsystems Sun Studio includes C, C++, and Fortran compilers and related development tools for Solaris and Linux machines with with SPARC or x86 processors. They may be downloaded and used free of charge.
Cygwin - a Linux emulation library for Windows.