CS5014: Research Methods in Computer Science

Fall 1995

Instructor: Prof. Marc Abrams (abrams@vt.edu)
Office hours: MWF 2-3 p.m., 641 McBryde, 231-8457

GTA: Ben Keller (keller@csgrad)
Office hours: T 9-12, MW 1-2 p.m., held in McBryde 116 (231-5193)

Table of Contents

1. What's new
2. Course syllabus
3. Course notes
4. Homeworks
5. Mail Archive
6. Errata for 2nd printing of Jain text
7. Frequently asked questions (not project-related)
8. E-mail list
9. How to Write HTML Documents
10. Research and Writing Tools
11. Sample Announcements of Jobs using CS5014 Material
12. Interesting links for first time Web users
13. Old final exam
14. How to make comments about CS5014

Comments on how I graded the term papers are available.

The in-class portion of last year's final exam is available.

Click here to view errors not listed in Jain's errata sheet (from 1st printing of the text).

Frequently asked questions (not project related):

From where can I download TeX and LaTeX?

See Research and Writing Tools below.

How do we access the Digital Library mentioned in the syllabus?

There are papers available via the web within the Dept which are the "Digital Library." Most of these papers are from ACM documents and were created as part of the Envision project.

To get to the papers open the URL http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~dienst/ACM/pages which gets you to a directory containing several ACM journals (there is also an IEEE subdirectory). The pages are in a directory tree based on journal, volume and number. The "library" is not complete since most issue directories (number level) don't contain all of the papers from that issue of the journal.

When you open a paper it will be displayed at 100dpi within your web browser. There are also hyperlink for displaying the paper at 300dpi using whatever program your browser uses for images (TIFF files).

How to Write HTML Documents

HTML is relatively simple to use. Click here to read an introduction to HTML. To look at the HTML file used to generate this Web page, use (in Mosaic) the "View source" command under the "File" menu or (in Netscape) the "Source" command under the "View" menu.

Style Guides

The following offer advice on how to write ``good'' HTML:

• Composing Good HTML
• CERN's style guide for online hypertext

Additional HTML References

• The HTML Quick Reference Guide, which provides a comprehensive listing of HTML codes
• The HTML Home Page, including links to all official HTML specifications
• How to Write HTML Files
• Introduction to HTML
• List of codes to insert special symbols into an HTML document
• A description of SGML, the Standard Generalized Markup Language

Research and Writing Tools

C Manual -- On-line Copy

B. Borwn, Online C manual. Contains 32 modules/topic ares to introduce the C language.

C++ Course

Introduction to Object Oriented Programming Using C++, a course from the Global Network Academy.

Elements of Style

W. Strunk, Jr., Elements of Style. This is a standard reference work containing rules of usage and composition. It used to be a required text for CS5014.

gnu Emacs manual

The gnu emacs manual is for version 19.22.

gnuplot manual

The gnuplot manual is available for version 3.6a. There is also a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list on gnuplot.

Obtaining gnu software (e.g., gnuplot)

The VT CS undergraduate lab maintains a mirror site for the Gnu software (including emacs and gnuplot): ftp://ftp.cslab.vt.edu/pub/GNU. (TeX and some other related tools are also available here.)

There is a campus server (csugrad.cs.vt.edu) that contains manuals for gnu software.

TeX and LaTeX

TeX and LaTeX can be obtained from one of the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) sites. These anonymous ftp sites around the world maintain identical archives. In addition to the TeX source and LaTeX macros, many useful styles can be found at these site. One site is ftp://pip.shsu.edu/tex-archive/.

Click here to view a directory of useful templates to insert figures, tables, equations, and so on into LaTeX documents. There are also various templates for popular BibTeX entry formats (thesis, paper, etc.).

Click here to view the a file named IEEE.bst for use with BibTeX to generate bibliography entries in the IEEE Transactions format.

UNIX documentation

Extensive manuals and information on UNIX, including links to on-line gnu software manuals and a manual-entry gateway for hard-to-find UNIX command manual entries.

Robert Evans, The UNIX Shell Commands Reference Card, Univ. of Wales. Provides a good overview and is very much like what you might read in in introductory text.

Online documentation, including material specific to ULTRIX

Another UNIX overview from the home of the WWW

The UNIX Index, Proper Publishing, Inc. Provides a comprehensive entry point to various aspects of UNIX, including answers to frequently asked questions on all aspects of UNIX.

Jennifer Meyers, The UNIX Reference Desk, Northwestern Univ. A definitive guide on all aspects of UNIX, put together by a neuroscience major. Includes documentation specific to different versions of UNIX, keyword searching of help files, acronym searching, jargon searching, online versions of many popular manuals, sources of UNIX-based free software, UNIX for PCs, and UNIX humor.

A few useful UNIX commands

Summary of commands for the vi text editor

Sample Announcements of Jobs using CS5014 Material

Click here to view some job announcements that use skills learned in CS5014.

First time World Wide Web users can check out these links:

The in-class portion of last year's final exam is available.