Getting+Started+with+Wikis

=Wiki for homework 1. Emily Riley administers HW1.= [|course home page] See the list of pages at left. In this Wiki, all members can edit all pages. Anyone anywhere can view the pages. All edits are logged, so contributors can be given credit in the class. But I don't know how easily we can undo them, so try to make sure every change you make is an improvement... but don't be shy! Give it a try!

What's the idea?
The plan is to "crowd-source" the code that does the homework - basic stats, and (extra credit) extensions of that. All of our talents will be pooled, to develop nice examples in all languages.

The pages should get BETTER AND BETTER, not LONGER AND LONGER. Don't get attached -- credit goes to those who contribute (all activity logged), even if your additions get deleted later.

We have pre-loaded some general material into Getting Data, and some starts on the code in the IDL code and Python pages. The others just contain a template for now. Go to it!

Rules of the road for group editing
I have used "header" text in each language's code page to define some sections (following the template page). Somebody should edit these into legal comment lines by adding % or ; or # so that cutting and pasting the whole Wiki page gives a legal code. (every line is a working statement, or follows comment syntax).

Editing code

 * If you have a whole different approach, start a new page! (new page, upper left).
 * there is no limit on pages
 * Otherwise, try to edit lines 1 or a few at a time, keeping the existing logic.
 * Advanced: consider automatically colorizing your code (it recognizes idl, matlab, python)
 * by adding markup tags in the "wikitext" editor under "save" menu http://help.wikispaces.com/Wikitext#Code

Pseudo-code or questions or problems

 * If you have a question or problem, use ??? at left edge:
 * ??? We need to convert lat to radians, but how exactly ___? ;;; Note: IDL comment character is ;
 * ??? The above doesn't work for me, we have a problem here
 * If you know the answer, delete the ??? line and replace it with a working code line.
 * If you have a better way to do a code line that exists, just comment it out, and add your line.
 * or start a new page - they are free and we have 2GB!
 * Beyond the initial filling in of blanks, you should have a copy and be testing everything on your own machine before changing the Wiki version.

Posting your results
Each student should make a New Page called something like zzzBrianMapes-pythonresults. The zzz will help keep them at the bottom of the list. ??? not sure

On your page, you can keep your versions of the code (as attachments), and show your figures (results). We have 2GB, plenty of room, and it's not a bad place to keep a copy of code: I bet it's backed up.

For writeup, you may also want to use special symbols δ ε ζ η etc. [|Here's a cut and paste cheat sheet]. Actually it supports full blown LaTEX mathamatics formatting http://help.wikispaces.com/Wikitext#Other%20Special%20Tags like this

Moderator's role (Emily, for HW1)
On the due date, Emily will present a tour through the various results. Any discrepancies can be followed up and solved.

Everything will remain on the Web for perpetuity.