1 .. Objectives

     2 .. ----------

     3 

     4 .. Clearly state the objectives of the LO (along with RBT level)

     5 

     6 .. By the end of this tutorial, you should -- 

     7 

     8 ..   #. Know what Sage and Sage notebook are.

     9 ..   #. Be able to start a Sage shell or notebook

    10 ..   #. Be able to start using the notebook

    11 ..   #. Be able to create new worksheets 

    12 ..   #. Know about the menu options available 

    13 ..   #. Know about the cells in the worksheet

    14 ..   #. Be able to evaluate cells, create and delete cells, navigate them.

    15 ..   #. Be able to make annotations in the worksheet

    16 ..   #. Be able to use tab completion. 

    17 ..   #. Be able to use code from other languages in the cells. 

    18 

    19 .. Prerequisites

    20 .. -------------

    21 

    22 .. None. 

    23      

    24 .. Author              : Madhu

    25    Internal Reviewer   : 

    26    External Reviewer   :

    27    Checklist OK?       : <put date stamp here, if OK> [2010-10-05]

    28 

    29 

    30 Script

    31 ------

    32 

    33 Hello friends. Welcome to this spoken tutorial on Getting started with

    34 sage and sage notebook.

    35 

    36 {{{ Show the slide containing the title }}}

    37 

    38 {{{ Show the slide containing the outline }}}

    39 

    40 In this tutorial, we will learn what Sage is, what is Sage notebook,

    41 how to start and use the sage notebook. In the notebook we will be

    42 specifically learning how to execute our code, how to write

    43 annotations and other content, typesetting the content and how to use

    44 the offline help available.

    45 

    46 {{{ Show the slide on what is Sage }}}

    47 

    48 To start with, What is Sage? Sage is a free, open-source mathematical

    49 software. Sage can do a lot of math stuff for you including but not

    50 limited to algebra, calculus, geometry, cryptography, graph theory

    51 among other things. It can also be used as aid in teaching and

    52 research in any of the areas that Sage supports. So let us start Sage

    53 now

    54 

    55 {{{ Shift to terminal }}}

    56 

    57 We are assuming that you have Sage installed on your computer now. If

    58 not please visit the page

    59 http://sagemath.org/doc/tutorial/introduction.html#installation for

    60 the tutorial on how to install Sage. Let us move on now.

    61 

    62 On the terminal type::

    63 

    64   sage

    65 

    66 This should start a new Sage shell with the prompt sage: which looks

    67 like this

    68 

    69 {{{ Show what is displayed on the terminal }}}

    70 

    71 So now we can type all the commands that Sage supports here. But Sage

    72 comes bundled with a much much much more elegant tool called Sage

    73 Notebook? What is Sage Notebook? Sage Notebook provides a web based

    74 user interface to use Sage. So once we have a Sage notebook server up

    75 and running all we want is a browser to access the Sage

    76 functionality. For example there is an official instance of Sage

    77 Notebook server running at http://sagenb.org You can visit that page,

    78 create an account there and start using Sage! So all you need is just

    79 a browser, a modern browser 

    80 

    81 {{{ Intentional *cough* *cough* }}}

    82 

    83 to use Sage and nothing else! The Sage notebook also provides a

    84 convenient way of sharing and publishing our work which is very handy

    85 when we use Sage for research or for teaching.

    86 

    87 However we can also run our own instances of Sage notebook servers on

    88 all the computers we have a local installation of Sage. To start the

    89 notebook server just type::

    90 

    91   notebook()

    92 

    93 on the Sage prompt. This will start the Sage Notebook server. If we

    94 are starting the notebook server for the first time, we are prompted

    95 to enter the password for the admin. Type the password and make a note

    96 of it. After this Sage automatically starts a browser page for you

    97 with the notebook opened.

    98 

    99 If it doesn't automatically start a browser page check if the Notebook

   100 server started and there were no problems. If so open your browser and

   101 in the address bar type the URL shown in the instructions upon running

   102 the notebook command on the sage prompt.

   103 

   104 {{{ The notebook() command gives an instruction telling 

   105 Open your web browser to http://localhost:8000. Point towards it }}}

   106 

   107 In our case it is http://localhost:{{{ Tell whatever is shown }}}

   108 

   109 {{{ Show the browser with Sage notebook }}}

   110 

   111 If you are not logged in yet, it shows the Notebook home page and

   112 textboxes to type the username and the password. You can use the

   113 username 'admin' and the password you gave while starting the notebook

   114 server for the first time. There are also links to recover forgotten

   115 password and to create new accounts.

   116 

   117 {{{ If you are logged in tell that you are logged in, log out and show

   118 what is said above for the login page }}}

   119 

   120 Once we are logged in with the admin account we can see the notebook

   121 admin page. A notebook can contain a collection of Sage Notebook

   122 worksheets. Worksheets are basically the working area. This is where

   123 we enter all the Sage commands on the notebook.

   124 

   125 The admin page lists all the worksheets created. On the topmost part

   126 of this page we have the links to various pages. 

   127 

   128 {{{ Whenever you talk on an individual link point your mouse towards

   129 the link. For each of the link go to the page and explain as below }}}

   130 

   131 The home link takes us to the admin home page. The published link

   132 takes us to the page which lists all the published worksheets. The log

   133 link has the complete log of all the actions we did on the

   134 notebook. We have the settings link where can configure our notebook,

   135 the notebook server, we can create and mangage accounts. We have a

   136 link to help upon clicking opens a new window with the complete help

   137 of Sage. The entire documentation of Sage is supplied with Sage for

   138 offline reference and this help link is the way to get into it. Then

   139 we can report bugs about Sage by clicking on Report a Problem link and

   140 there is a link to sign out of the notebook.

   141 

   142 We can create a new worksheet by clicking New Worksheet link

   143 

   144 {{{ Click on the link }}}

   145 

   146 Sage prompts you for a name for the worksheet. Let us name the

   147 worksheet as nbtutorial. Now we have our first worksheet which is

   148 empty.

   149 

   150 A worksheet will contain a collection of cells. Every Sage command

   151 must be entered in this cell. Cell is equivalent to the prompt on

   152 console. When we create a new worksheet, to start with we will have

   153 one empty cell. Let us try out some math here::

   154 

   155   2 + 2

   156   57.1 ^ 100

   157 

   158 The cap operator is used for exponentiation. If you observed carefully

   159 we typed two commands but the output of only last command was

   160 displayed. By default each cell displays the result of only the last

   161 operation. We have to use print statement to display all the results

   162 we want to be displayed.

   163 

   164 {{{ Demonstrate creating a new cell }}}

   165 

   166 Now to perform more operations we want more cells. So how do we create

   167 a new cell? It is very simple. As we hover our mouse above or below

   168 the existing cells we see a blue line, by clicking on this new line we

   169 can create a new cell. 

   170 

   171 We have a cell, we have typed some commands in it, but how do we

   172 evaluate that cell? Pressing Shift along with Enter evaluates the

   173 cell. Alternatively we can also click on the evaluate link to evaluate

   174 the cell

   175 

   176 {{{ Evaluate the cell and demonstrate for both methods separately

   177 }}}::

   178 

   179   matrix([[1,2], [3,4]])^(-1)

   180 

   181 After we create many cells, we may want to move between the cells. To

   182 move between the cells use Up and Down arrow keys. Also clicking on

   183 the cell will let you edit that particular cell.

   184 

   185 {{{ Move between two cells created }}}

   186 

   187 To delete a cell, clear the contents of the cell and hit backspace

   188 

   189 {{{ Clear and demonstrate deleting the cell }}}::

   190 

   191   Makes no sense

   192 

   193 If you want to add annotations in the worksheet itself on the blue

   194 line that appears on hovering the mouse around the cell, Hold Shift

   195 and click on the line. This creates a What You See Is What You Get

   196 cell.

   197 

   198 {{{ Create a HTML editable cell }}}

   199 

   200 We can make our text here rich text. We can make it bold, Italics, we

   201 can create bulleted and enumerated lists in this area::

   202 

   203   This text contains both the **bold** text and also *italicised*

   204   text.

   205   It also contains bulleted list:

   206   * Item 1

   207   * Item 2

   208   It also contains enumerate list:

   209   1. Item 1

   210   2. Item 2

   211 

   212 In the same cell we can display typeset math using the LaTeX like

   213 syntax::

   214 

   215   $\int_0^\infty e^{-x} \, dx$

   216 

   217 We enclose the math to be typeset within $ and $ or $$ and $$ as in

   218 LaTeX.

   219 

   220 We can also obtain help for a particular Sage command or function

   221 within the worksheet itself by using a question mark following the

   222 command::

   223 

   224   sin?

   225 

   226 Evaluating this cell gives me the entire help for the sin function

   227 inline on the worksheet itself. Similarly we can also look at the

   228 source code of each command or function using double question mark::

   229 

   230   matrix??

   231 

   232 Sage notebook also provides the feature for autocompletion. To

   233 autocomplete a command type first few unique characters and hit tab

   234 key::

   235 

   236   sudo<tab>

   237 

   238 To see all the commands starting with a specific name type those

   239 characters and hit tab::

   240 

   241   plo<tab>

   242 

   243 To list all the methods that are available for a certain variable or

   244 a datatype we can use the variable name followed by the dot to access

   245 the methods available on it and then hit tab::

   246 

   247   s = 'Hello'

   248   s.rep<tab>

   249 

   250 The output produced by each cell can be one of the three states. It

   251 can be either the full output, or truncated output or hidden output.

   252 The output area will display the error if the Sage code we wrote in

   253 the cell did not successfully execute::

   254 

   255   a, b = 10

   256 

   257 {{{ Show the three states }}}

   258 

   259 The default output we obtained now is a truncated output. Clicking at

   260 the left of the output area when the mouse pointer turns to hand gives

   261 us the full output, clicking again makes the output hidden and it

   262 cycles.

   263 

   264 Lastly, Sage supports a variety of languages and each cell on the

   265 worksheet can contain code written in a specific language. It is

   266 possible to instruct Sage to interpret the code in the language we

   267 have written. This can be done by putting percentage sign(%) followed

   268 by the name of the language. For example, to interpret the cell as

   269 Python code we put::

   270 

   271   %python

   272 

   273 as the first line in the cell. Similarly we have: %sh for shell

   274 scripting, %fortran for Fortran, %gap for GAP and so on. Let us see

   275 how this works. Say I have an integer. The type of the integer in

   276 default Sage mode is

   277 {{{ Read the output }}}::

   278 

   279   a = 1

   280   type(a)

   281 

   282   Output: <type 'sage.rings.integer.Integer'>

   283 

   284 We see that Integers are Sage Integers. Now let us put %python as the

   285 first line of the cell and execute the same code snippet::

   286 

   287   %python

   288   a = 1

   289   type(a)

   290 

   291   Output: <type 'int'>

   292 

   293 Now we see that the integer is a Python integer. Why? Because now we

   294 instructed Sage to interpret that cell as Python code.

   295 

   296 This brings us to the end of the tutorial on using Sage. We learnt

   297 quite a lot about using the Notebook User Interface of Sage. We are

   298 now confident that we can comfortably use the notebook to learn more

   299 about Sage in the following tutorials. Let us summarize what we

   300 learnt. In this session we learnt

   301 

   302   * What is Sage

   303   * How to start Sage shell

   304   * What is Sage notebook

   305   * How to start the Sage notebook

   306   * How to create accounts and start using the notebook

   307   * How to create new worksheets

   308   * The menus available on the notebook

   309   * About cells in the worksheet

   310   * Methods to evaluate the cell, create new cells, delete the cells

   311     and navigate around the cells

   312   * To make annotations in the worksheet

   313   * Tab completions

   314   * And embedding code of other scripting languages in the cells

   315 

   316 {{{ Show the "sponsored by FOSSEE" slide }}}

   317 

   318 This tutorial was created as a part of FOSSEE project, NME ICT, MHRD India

   319 

   320 Hope you have enjoyed and found it useful.

   321 Thank you!

   322  

   323