Assignment 0: Introduction

This is a simple warm-up assignment that introduces you to the environment we will use throughout this course, and refresh your git knowledge. This assignment is the way you will register for the course. You will not be able to access further (graded or ungraded) assignments without completing this assignment.

Throughout this course, you will receive and submit your assignments through git repositories on GitHub. Our git usage will be rather simple and straightforward. However, you are recommended to learn, or refresh your knowledge, about basic usage of git (you may use any of the numerous tutorials you can find on the Internet).

How to work on and submit the assignments?

• For every assignment, you will receive a URL. Once you follow the URL, GitHub will create a private repository for you for each assignment.
• The instructions for the assignments will be stored in a file named READM.md. Your repository may also contain starter code other files needed for completing the assignment.
• You should clone this repository to your own computer, and work locally for the most part of the assignments.
• For each step of the assignment, commit your changes/additions. You should also commit each bugfix, or later improvements individually. In general, frequent commits are good.
• Once you completed your assignment, push your solution to GitHub. For graded assignments, your final solution is the state of your implementation at the last commit pushed to GitHub before the deadline. You can push as frequently as you like. You will not get any penalties for earlier incomplete versions of your assignment.

The URLs for the later assignments will be posted on the private course repository. You will get access to this repository only after you submit the current assignment. We will use this repository for some of the course material, course discussion and announcements. Make sure you are watching the common repository (visit it and click on the eye icon on top right section of the page).

Using Python

All assignments for this course are to be implemented in Python, and we will be using the latest stable release, Python 3.7. You can check if Python is already installed using python -V from the command line. Follow the official instructions to download or update your Python version. As a computational linguist, you should be able to install and solve issues related to your development environment.

The exercise

You are provided with a starter Python script, assignment0.py. The code calls two functions which you will need to modify. Follow the instructions below for completing this assignment. Also, don’t forget to add your information and the honor code at the beginning of assignment0.py as described in the course policy.

1.1 ‘Hello world!’ again!

The starter script contains a function called register(), which asks the user for their last name using the input() function and prints out the user response on the screen via the print() function.

Extend the function such that the following information is gathered from the user and printed out on the screen:

• Last name
• First name(s)
• Student ID
• Email address

Add your modified assignment0.py to version control (git add <filename>) and commit your changes (git commit).

1.2 Write output to a file

The starter script contains a second function called save_info(), which saves the student information to a file. Again, the last name label and the string typed in by the user is already saved to the file assignment0.txt in a two-column tab-separated format.

Modify the code so that the output includes the rest of the student information. The first column should include the labels above in four separate rows, and the second column should be the corresponding information you get from the user. Successive runs should overwrite the file.

Test your changes, and commit them (only the source code).

Put the file assignment0.txt under version control (git add <filename>), and commit it.

Run your application, and answer them correctly, populating the file assignment0.txt with your own personal data. Make sure the file name and the field names exactly match the description given above.

1.3 Push your changes to GitHub

Make sure that latest versions of all required files (the modified source code and the text file) are under version control, and push them to your GitHub repository (git push).

You can push your assignment as many times as you like. Only the final version will be graded.

To signal that your assignment is complete, please tag it with the label final, and make sure to push the tag to GitHub. Here is how to do this on the command line:

git tag final
git push --tags

Tagging your assignment as final is required for timely checking of your assignments. If you do not tag your repository as final, your assignment will be checked after the late assignment deadline.

Notes

Although this assignment is not graded, it counts as your registration. Please complete it as soon as possible. We will also use the text file created in this assignment. So, please make sure that the information you provided is accurate and formatted as instructed.

The assignment code includes some automated testing that checks the resulting file. You can run the tests from the command line with python3 -m pytest. Your registration will not be complete until the tests succeed.