Laboratory Exercises For Computer Science 153

Getting Started

Getting Started

Goals: This lab reviews some mechanics related to the use of the Mathematics Local-Area Network (MathLAN) for CS 153. The lab also introduces the Scheme environment and introduces Scheme's read-eval-print loop.

More specifically, this lab discusses:

Since you have already programmed in some language on some computer system, some of these mechanics may already be familiar. However, at the very least, you should skim through the first several sections to be sure there are no surprises.

Please pay particular attention to the section on Netscape Options and all sections on Scheme.

Logging In and Out

To use any of the computers in the Mathematics Local-Area Network, one must log in, giving a user name and a password. Contact the instructor if you have questions about this process.

Note: It is not necessary to turn off the workstation when you are finished. MathLAN workstations are designed to operate continuously; turning them off and on frequently actually shortens their life expectancy.

Netscape Navigator

Many materials for this course will be distributed over the World Wide Web rather than in paper copies. To view materials, such as this course's syllabus and this lab, you may follow these steps:

  1. Prepare to utilize the World Wide Web by clicking on the Netscape icon (the picture with N at the bottom panel of the screen).

  2. The first time you run Netscape Navigator on MathLAN, two message boxes pop up.
    1. One box asks you to consent to the terms of Netscape Communications Corporation's licensing agreement;
    2. One box requests permission to create some configuration files in your home directory.
    You should approve both of these requests by clicking on the appropriate word. The pop-up boxes then disappear; you won't see them on subsequent uses of Netscape Navigator.

  3. Initially, Netscape Navigator displays a World Wide Web document containing its logo, version number, copyright notice, and such like. After a minute or so, or sooner if you click inside its window, the program replaces this document with a startup page entitled ``The origin,'' which is an entry point to the Mathematics and Computer Science Department's web site.

  4. Practice scrolling material shown in the window up and down:
    • Scroll down by moving the mouse to the bottom part of the scroll bar and clicking the left mouse button.
    • Scroll up by moving the mouse to the top part of the scroll bar and clicking the left mouse button.
    • Move up or down by moving the mouse to the shaded part of the scroll bar, holding the middle mouse button down, and sliding the mouse up and down.

  5. Practice moving and resizing the Netscape window.
    • Move the Netscape window by moving the mouse to the labeled bar near the top of the window, depressing the left mouse button, and dragging the window around the screen.
    • Resize the Netscape window by moving the mouse to the small border of a window or to the small corner border, pressing the left mouse button, and moving the border to a new position.
    • In the future, you may find it convenient to move the Netscape window to the upper left of the screen.

  6. To find material for this course, scroll down the home page for the Mathematics and Computer Science Department, click on the line CSC 153, Computer Science Fundamentals. Next, click on the Schedule link to view the current class schedule.

  7. Click on the line Labs to find a listing of all labs currently developed for this course. Check that this lab is available as Lab 1.

Netscape Navigator options

Each MathLAN user can configure Netscape Navigator to reflect his or her own preferences. Between logins, these preferences are stored in a file in the user's home directory; when Netscape Navigator is started during a later session, they are reinstated from that file.

Every user of Netscape Navigator on MathLAN should at some point perform two specific configuration steps:

  1. Establish a base page -- a starting point for browsing. Here are the Uniform Resource Locators or URLs of some good choices:

    To establish your base page, bring up the Edit menu from the menu bar and select the Preferences operation. A pop-up window appears, allowing you to configure many features of the general appearance of Netscape Navigator. Choose the Navigator option. The rectangle labeled Home Page Location contains the URL of the ``Welcome to Netscape'' document at Netscape Communications Corporation; this is what Netscape Navigator uses by default as a base page. Replace the contents of this rectangle with one of the URLs shown above. (This does not have to be a permanent change; you can change your mind about this configuration at any time within Netscape Navigator.)

    To erase the current contents of the Home Page Location box, move the mouse pointer to the left of the first character in the box, press the left mouse button and hold it down, and drag the mouse pointer rightwards until the entire URL is displayed in reverse video, white letters on a black background. Then release the left mouse button and type the new URL; the old one will vanish as soon as you start typing. Once you have entered the new URL, move the mouse pointer onto the button marked OK at the bottom of the pop-up window and click on it with the left mouse button.

  2. Reduce the disk cache to zero. (The disk cache is a collection of files, stored in your account, containing copies of recently examined documents and graphics. MathLAN does not have enough disk space to allow all users to maintain large disk caches, and they have little effect on the performance of Netscape Navigator in most cases.)

    To reduce the size of the disk cache, bring up the Edit menu again and select the Preferences operation. Again a pop-up window appears. Click on the right-pointing triangle next to Advanced and then click on the Cache option. Erase the number (typically 5000) that appears in the rectangle labeled Disk Cache and replace it with 0. Finally, click on the OK button at the bottom of the pop-up window.

The dtterm terminal emulator

The Scheme system that we shall use in this course is not represented by any icon on the front panel. To run it, one must invoke it by name. The computer program that reads and responds to such invocations is called the shell, and one's interactions with the shell take place in a window generated by a program called a terminal emulator. The particular terminal emulator that we shall use is named dtterm.

You may already have a dtterm window on screen. If not, you can start one at any time by moving the pointer onto the small monitor-and-keyboard icon, fourth from the right on the bottom row of the front panel, and click with the left mouse button. Shortly a window will appear, displaying the shell prompt -- the name of the workstation on which the shell is running, followed by a percentage sign. This prompt indicates that the shell is ready to receive instructions.

One types in such instructions using the keyboard. Move the mouse pointer into the dtterm window to make it active. Notice that the window frame changes color when the pointer crosses it, indicating that the window has become active.

To shut down dtterm, press <Ctrl/d> -- that is, hold down either of the keys marked <Ctrl>, just below the <Shift> keys, and simultaneously press the <d> key. (On our workstations' keyboards, the keys marked <Ctrl> (``control'') and <Alt> (``alt'' or ``meta'') are somewhat like <Shift> keys, in the sense that they modify the effect of other keys that are pressed simultaneously.) The shell program interprets <Ctrl/d> as a signal that you have no more instructions for it and halts, and the dtterm terminal emulator closes the window automatically once the shell stops running.

If you want to set the window aside for the moment, with the possibility of returning to it later, look closely at the upper right-hand corner of the window, where the frame contains a small square with a dot in it; if you move the pointer into that square and click on the left mouse button, you minimize the window, closing it up into a small rectangular icon along the left-hand edge of the screen. A minimized window can be restored by moving the pointer onto its icon and clicking the left mouse button twice in rapid succession.

Changing Your Password

You should change the password associated with your account shortly after you receive it and every few months thereafter. The password program lets you make this change.

  1. Choose a new password. Make it something that you can easily remember, but not an English word or a name, since it is easy for system crackers to break in by guessing your password if you choose it from one of those categories.

  2. Open an dtterm window, move the pointer into it, and type the word password. The password program will prompt you once for your old password -- the one you logged in with -- and twice for your new password. If you give your old password correctly and the two copies of your new password match, the program will substitute the new password for the old one in the table that the login program consults. The old password will be discarded and will not be recognized in subsequent logins. (If the attempt to change the password fails for any reason, however, the old password will be retained.)

After running the password program, the shell takes over again and issues another prompt. You can invoke as many programs as you like from the shell, one after another, before pressing <Ctrl/d> to leave the shell.

Notes on the History of Scheme:

Lisp was invented in the late 1950's and early 1960's at M.I.T. by John McCarthy. Lisp is based in part on the Lambda Calculus, a mathematical formalism developed by Alonzo Church (1903-1995).

Lisp is the second-oldest language still in widespread use (the oldest is Fortran). Two dialects of Lisp are widely used today: Scheme and Common Lisp. Scheme is a small, uniform dialect that is good for teaching because of its simplicity. Common Lisp is a large, ``industrial-strength'' dialect that is standardized and is available in several commercial versions. In this course, we will use an implementation of Scheme called Chez Scheme .

Most programming languages require learning the syntax of many different kinds of statements. In contrast, Scheme (and Lisp) syntax is simple and uniform. Much of the work in learning Scheme is learning the names and effects of the system functions that form the core of the language. This course presents the system functions and covers other functions that are present in Common Lisp.

Lisp is especially used for work in Artificial Intelligence. For example, CS 261, Artificial Intelligence, uses programming in LISP in its study of expert systems.

Running Scheme:

To run the Scheme system, move the pointer into the dtterm window, type the word scheme (all in lower-case letters), and press the <Enter> key. Scheme will print out a header and then issue its own prompt (a greater-than sign), indicating that it is ready to examine and process any Scheme program that you submit to it: 

Chez Scheme Version 5.9i
Copyright (c) 1998 Cadence Research Systems

>

To shut down Scheme, press <Ctrl/d> at the Scheme prompt. The shell comes back and generates another prompt once Scheme has stopped.

Numbers in Scheme

  1. In Scheme, processing proceeds by typing expressions into the Scheme environment. After each expression is entered, Scheme
    • reads the expression,
    • evaluates the expression to determine its value, and
    • prints the resulting value.
    This read-eval-print cycle forms the basis for all processing within Scheme.

    Numbers are expressions, whose value or meaning is the number itself.
    Type several numbers into Chez Scheme, typing one number at a time. For example, at the Scheme prompt, type 

        7
    -10
    3.1415926535
    In each case, note how Chez Scheme responds.

  2. Accuracy: Enter a read number with many digits. How many digits are printed in the answer for integers? For reals?

  3. Fractions: Determine what happens when you enter a fraction. For example, what value is returned when you enter: 
        3/5
    -18/19
    10/34
    How many digits are printed in the answer for rational numbers?

  4. Numeric Procedures: In Scheme, we apply operations to data using a prefix notation with parentheses. For example, the function f(x) would be written (f x). Also, all operation names are listed as the first component within the parentheses. Observe what happens when you type the following operations into Scheme: 
        (- 27 3)
    (/ 17 2)
    (/ 17 -2)
    (/ 17 2.0)
    (truncate (/ 17 4))
    (modulo 17 3)
    (sqrt 4)
    (sin 0.5)
    (sqrt -2)
    (+ (* 3 2) (/ 8 4))

  5. Symbols are Scheme's analog of words; symbols are sequences of characters, such as
    hi TwoBeOrNot2Be This-is-a-symbol.
    In Scheme, symbols may act as variable names, but they do not have a value until we give them one. Describe what happens when you type one of the above symbols into Scheme.

  6. We may give a symbol a value using a define operation. For example, give the symbol pi the value 3.141592 as follows: 
         (define pi 3.141592)
    Now enter pi into Scheme and determine what happens.

  7. Check if work with symbols within Chez Scheme is case sensitive. What happens if you type Pi or PI.

  8. Check whether Scheme allows you to redefine the value of a symbol. For example, following the 1897 Indiana House, try to declare that the value of pi is three: 
         (define pi 3)
    Now what happens if you type the symbol pi?

  9. Determine what happens if you make a typographical error. For example, try misspelling define or leaving out a left or right parentheses. In each case, make a note describing what happens.

  10. Binding: The define operation binds a symbol to a value, based on the current values of its operands. For example, consider the following sequence of definitions: 
       (define a 4)
   (define b 5)
   (define c 1)
   (define discriminant 
         (- (* b b) (* 4 (* a c))))
   (define root1
         (/ (+ (- b) (sqrt discriminant))
            (* 2 a)))
   (define root2
         (/ (- (- b) (sqrt discriminant))
            (* 2 a)))
    Determine the values for a, b, c, discriminant, root1, and root2 .

  11. Continue the previous problem by changing the values of a, b, and c. Are the values of discriminant, root1 and root2 changed immediately, or do these symbols have their earlier values?

This document is available on the World Wide Web as 

http://www.math.grin.edu/~walker/courses/153.sp00/lab-getting-started.html

created December 29, 1996 by John David Stone
last revised January 7, 2000 by Henry M. Walker
Henry M. Walker (walker@math.grin.edu)