Prior to the workshop, it is vital that you bring your own laptop, install some software on it, and complete the CESSDA Research Infrastructure Contributor License Agreement form by following the instructions below
Your laptop can run Linux, Mac OSX or Windows.
If you haven’t obtained a Bitbucket account, register for one first. Then complete the CESSDA Research Infrastructure Contributor License Agreement form, which will cover you for your contributions to all CESSDA code repositories hosted on Bitbucket.
There is little time during the workshop to deal with installation problems, so it makes the day run much more smoothly if you arrive with your software already installed. You will need to install:
- The Bash shell
- Java, used as the exemplar programming language
- Maven, which we’ll use to run Java builds and tests
- A text editor (if you don’t already have one you are comfortable with)
- A Git client, used to access CESSDA’s Bitbucket source code repository
Bash
Among many other things, Bash allows you to automate dull and boring tasks. We use it during the command line section of the course.
Windows
Bash will be provided as part of the Git for Windows installation as described below.
Mac OS X
The Bash shell is accessed by opening the “Terminal” application. The Terminal application can be found in the “Utilities” folder which is in your “Applications” folder.
Linux
The Bash shell is accessed via the Terminal application.
Java
Java is available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. Download and install the Java SE Development Kit 8 from Oracle’s website.
Once installed, be sure to add JAVA_HOME to your system’s environment variables with the full path location of Java’s installation, and add the bin directory under JAVA_HOME to your system environment’s PATH variable if it isn’t already.
Maven
You can download and install Maven (version 3.5 or above) for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows from Maven’s website.
Once installed, be sure to add e.g. /path/to/installation/of/apache-maven-3.5.4/bin to your system’s PATH environment variable (replacing /path/to/installation/of/ with the path to where it’s installed).
Text Editor
A text editor is the piece of software you use to view and write code. If you have a preferred text editor, please use it. If you don't have one, we recommend the following.
Windows
Notepad++. Just download the installer and run it.
Mac OS X and Linux
Nano is a text editor that is installed by default on Mac OS X and Linux.
You can verify you have nano installed by opening a terminal and entering:
nano
If nano is not installed, you will receive an error. If it is installed, nano will open (appearing not dissimilar to the terminal window, but with menu items at the bottom of the window).
To exit nano press CTRL+X (you might be prompted you to save or discard modified buffer - just type “N” to exit without saving).
Git
Git is the version control software we will use. It allows you to keep track of your software and the edits made to it. You can choose to use Git via either the command line or a GUI tool called SourceTree.
Git: command line
Windows
Download and install Git for Windows. Please note that you can accept the default installation options, with one exception - at the step ‘Configuring the terminal emulator to use with Git Bash’ you must select ‘Use Windows default console window’.
Mac OS X
On Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks and later, Git will be installed automatically the first time you try to run it. Open a terminal and enter:
git
There may be a short delay whilst the installer operates. You can then follow the prompts to install the Apple command line development tools.
On Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leoapard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion, download and open the Git installer image. Double click the .pkg file and follow the instructions.
If you intend to use an earlier version of Mac OS X, please contact us before the event.
Linux
Install via a terminal like this:
Ubuntu and derivatives:
sudo apt-get install git
Fedora:
su -
dnf install git
Git: SourceTree GUI
This is a free GUI-based tool that is available for both Windows and Mac, that integrates nicely with Bitbucket. You can download it here. During installation and setup of the tool, when connecting a hosted account, use the Bitbucket account that you entered whtn filling in the CESSDA Research Infrastructure Contributor License Agreement form.