Student Resources

This document contains links that would likely only be of interest to students in my classes (past, current, or future). These links point to mostly reference documents describing how to do certain operations or use certain pieces of software that we have at VTC.

For writing programs or other code files (HTML, LaTeX, etc.), you will need a good quality text editor. There are many possibilities:
- Visual Studio Code is popular and powerful. There is a huge number of extensions available for it, and it is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms.
- Sublime Text is also a powerful editor that is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms.
- Notepad++ is a popular editor on the Windows platform. It is powerful and yet still easy to use.
- Brackets is an editor founded by Adobe focusing on web technologies.
- Nano is an easy-to-use terminal-only editor for Unix-like systems. If you aren't ready to deal with Emacs of Vim, it can be a good place to start.
- Emacs is an excellent editor, although it has a steep learning curve. It is available for many platforms.
- Vim is also a highly respected power that many programmers rely on. It also has a steep learning curve and is available for many platforms. Neovim is a fork of Vim that is also worth considering.
- jEdit is entirely written in Java and is cross-platform.
- If you are looking for a bigger adventure, I invite you to try Y, a text editor I wrote to support the programming classes at Vermont Technical College.
In many of my classes, I make use of the Git version control system. I have prepared a short document about Git to help you get up to speed with the system quickly.
I require LaTeX for lab reports in most of my classes. The document LaTeX at VTC describes the system. The archive containing all related files may also be of interest. For a good reference/tutorial on LaTeX, see Tobias Oetiker's The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e.
I have written several documents describing how to use various integrated development environments and related packages. These documents are intended to help you get up to speed with these systems as quickly and easily as possible.
- For C++ programmers, I created a separate page describing how to set up and use several different C++ development environments.
- IntelliJ IDEA. A general IDE by JetBrains. My instructions cover how to set up IntelliJ for doing Scala programming.
- GPS. Ada programming environment from AdaCore.
When programming, you should use a reasonable, consistent style. When appropriate, follow industry standard styles. When there is no well-defined industry standard, you can develop your own. As a starting point, I invite you to review my C/C++ style guidelines.
In certain classes, I make use of the functional language Haskell. I have prepared some instructions for setting up a Haskell development environment on your computer.
If you are using PuTTY to access lemuria.cis.vermontstate.edu, you should read my instructions for setting up PuTTY.
In some of my classes, I make use of the Subversion version control system. Several past VTC students prepared a Subversion How-To that describes how to use the Tortoise SVN Subversion client. The document contains some information on the command line client as well.
In some of my classes, I use IRC to enable student communication. I have prepared some instructions on how to use the xchat IRC client inside the HackBox virtual machine.
I have written some guidelines for the submission of work, and some additional suggestions and requirements for lab reports.
In some cases, I may require you to submit work that has been encrypted and digitally signed with GPG. I have prepared a document describing how to use GPG to do this.
My independent study guidelines describe how I run independent study courses. If you are considering an independent study with me, you should first read this document.