Items for the Class

Hardware (hardly free)

• A computer: laptop or desktop. No tablet PCs as a main computational resource. Better if you already have a linux-based one or Mac. For a Windows-based PC, you need to install some packages to run a linux-based operating system on your PC. Please consult with me or TA if you have Windows PCs only or none.

Softwares (mostly free)

Essential software (required, free):

• Linux/Unix or Mac OS X with Xcode (no Windows please!).
• Compilers for Fortran 90, C/C++ (e.g., gfortran, gcc)
• Debuggers (gdb , lldb, etc.)
• Python and its scientific libraries (e.g., Anaconda, NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, etc.)
• Version control system (e.g., Git or SVN)
• Text editors (traditional ones: GNU emacs, aquamacs, vi, vim; modern fancy ones: sublime, atom, etc.)
• Sphinx
• LaTex packages (texshop, LaTeXiT)

Extra software (optional, free or commercial):

• Matlab or GNU Octave
• software package manager (Yum, Homebrew, MacPorts, etc.)
• GNU plot, IDL
• symbolic math using sage
• even more for high performance computing on Mac

Others (absolutely free)

• Most importantly, your passion and energy to learn new things.