Working at home, choice of language, etc.

> 1. Is it possible to work at home with a computer running Linux?

Absolutely.  I have no plans for this course to require the use of any
commercial software packages that are not freely available, so you
should be able to obtain any of the requisite tools (e.g. gnu C
compiler, image displayers, etc.) if you don't already have them. 

> 2. I have been working with PERL a lot during the summer for an
> internship. I didn't use any OOP and I did not get a chance to use the
> complex data structures very often. Would it be better to use C or
> PERL for the assignments? 

That's completely up to you. Personally, I'm more comfortable with C
just because that's what I grew up using, but from my (admittedly
limited) experience with perl, it seems there's not much you can do with
C that you can't with perl.  And if the situation should arise where you
do need C, you can always embed perl functions within a C program
(although by the time you end up doing that, you might prefer just to
stick with C for the whole thing).  The one caveat to all of this is
that all of the example code fragments I will use throughout the course
will be in C.  Of course, if you know perl, you already have a pretty
good handle on C.

> If I use PERL for the first assignment will
> I be able to switch to C later on during the semester? (i.e. are the
> following assignments based on the first one?) 

Yes, you can switch at any time.  The assignments will be disjoint (i.e.
not built on each other).

> Will I be able to get
> support if I have problems with PERL?

If you take a look at the on-line perl documentation (see the link from
the course web page to "References on programming"), you'll find
practically everything there is to know about perl under the sun.  Of
course, it should go without saying (but I'll say it anyway), that
regardless of whether you use C, C++, or perl, it is up to you to write
and debug your programs.

> 3. I have been using the basic UNIX commands this summer while working
> on a SUN computer but I still think I know very little about that OS.
> Will that knowledge be enough to start off?

You're expected to have basic knowledge of UNIX shell and development
tools (i.e. you can navigate directories, edit and manipulate files,
compile programs, use the man pages for help, etc.).  You do not have to
know anything more about the OS than that to start off -- after all,
this is what you're expected to learn during the course.

- Jeremy