c603 Students:

Introduction

A copy of this message can be found at:
http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~c603/emails.shtml

Your first assignment for CMPUT 603 is now available.  In order to
start the assignment, you will first need to obtain the assignment
specification, which is a latex document stored in a read-only
Concurrent Version System (CVS) repository.

CVS is primarily used to manage multi-contributor software projects.
However, the same features that benefit source-code management also
benefit any other project where multiple contributors work on
plain-text files:

   - Version Control: Every version of each file is saved, and can be
     easily recovered.

   - Automatic Merging: Multiple concurrent changes to a document
     can usually be automatically merged, though human verification
     of the correctness of the merge is recommended.

   - Distribution: Anyone (with access privileges) can obtain or
     update to the most recent version of the entire project with a
     single command.

For more information about CVS, see http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/

When writing a paper with multiple authors, it is convenient to store
the paper in CVS.  Not only does this provide a reliable backup system
in case you accidentally delete something important, but it also
provides a simple mechanism for all authors to ensure they have an
up-to-date version of the paper.  As someone with personal experience
with both CVS-based and tarball+email-based multi-author paper
writing, I can assert that CVS provides a much cleaner and simpler
solution than emailing megabytes of material back and forth.


Checking Out The Assignment

First, go to the directory where you want your copy of the assignment
to be placed.  When you check the assignment out of the repository, it
will create the C603paper1 directory, which will contain all the files
required to build the assignment document.

Check out the assignment with the following command:

$> cvs -d ~c603/CVS checkout C603paper1

The "checkout" command can be abbreviated as "co" if you wish.


Building the Document

Change into the C603paper1 directory:

$> cd C603paper1

To list the files in this directory:

$> ls

The specifications for your
assignment have been created as if it were a paper.  Subdirectories
contain the main content of the specification, such as Text and
Figures.  The paper1spec.tex file is the main latex file that lays out
the structure of the documents.  local.bib contains citation
information for use by bibtex, which will generate the bibliography.
Finally, the makefile has commands so that you can build both a ps and
a pdf version of the paper:

$> make

Look at the files that have been created by make:

$> ls

You can now view either paper1spec.ps or paper1spec.pdf with your
favorite viewer.  This document will provide the details of your
assignment.


Example PS and PDF viewer commands:

$> gv paper1spec.ps
$> gv paper1spec.pdf
$> acroread paper1spec.pdf
$> xpdf paper1spec.pdf