Software installation

It's called a boot-strapping problem because it's like trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. This class assumes you don't know anything about software, but we need to install some software so we can start learning about it. The following list of tasks includes some software-related work we need to do to get going, but we'll be taking care of it at our first meeting on January 29, so don't worry if some of the ideas are unfamiliar.

What you need to do:

Install the Xcode development system. Xcode is Apple's software development environment and contains various software systems and tools that we will be using in the class. The software download is quite large, so we'll be loading the software on our laptops from DVDs to speed things up.
Put the Terminal application in the Dock. We'll be using the Terminal application throughout the class, so it will be convenient to have it easily accessible. The Terminal application is in the /Application/Utilities directory. The Terminal application runs a program called a shell.
Choose a text editor. If you have previous experience with a text editor, you can use that for the class. If not, then the standard OS X text editor, TextEdit will do fine for the class. It is located in the /Applications directory. You can read more about text editors and how you should customize TextEdit in the next tutorial.
Check that Python is installed. We'll be using the Python programming language for most of our work in the class. To check that it is installed, open a Terminal window, and type "python". You should see something like this:
```
Python 2.3.5 (#1, Mar 20 2005, 20:38:20)  
[GCC 3.3 20030304 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 1809)] on darwin 
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. 
>>>  
```
If you're feeling ambitious, you could take a look at the first Python tutorial, but we'll be going over it in detail in the first class.
Provide your laptop's network address. To connect to the Internet access during the class, you need to tell Machine Project your laptop's MAC address and the user name you would like to use. (The acronym "MAC" is a coincidence —- it stands for "Media Access Control".) To find it, click on the apple symbol to open the "About This Mac" display. Click on "More info". Click on the "Network" item in the "Contents" list on the left. The MAC address is listed at the bottom.

The Network items in the "About This Mac" display
We'll have a sign-up sheet at the setup class on January 29. You can also send e-mail to Mark at Machine Project.