1b. System Basics

• Basic tasks
  • turning physical problems into mathematical equations
  • classical approach
    • solving mathematical equations
  • numerical approach
    • turning mathematical equations into numerical algorithms
    • turning numerical algorithms into computer programs
    • writing and running the programs
  • displaying and analyzing the results

• Associated skills: basic Linux operation
  • network access: newton.physics.drexel.edu
  • ssh and scp: built-in on linux/UNIX and MacOS; available on Windows
  • the X window system

  • shells and the command-line interface
  • other ways to edit and run programs

  • files and the UNIX file system
  • input, output, pipes, redirection, and other linux tricks
  • editing files

  • some essential Linux commands

• Writing a simple program

  • some program fragments
  • examples
    • sample program #0:   C   C++   python
    • sample program #1:   C   C++   python
    • sample program #2:   C   C++   python

  • turning a problem into a program in C/C++ and/or python
  • the results in C++ and Python

  • compiled versus interpreted languages
    • programming considerations
    • performance considerations

  • C compilation
  • C++ compilation

• In-class exercise 1.1

• Basic graphics and printing: gnuplot and gpl.
  Data may be read from a file (here's an example) or piped from a running program.

• In-class exercise 1.2

• Homework #1    [Notes on Homework 1]