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CS16

Atom is a graphical editor that is similar to Sublime Text, but free and open source.

On machines physically in CSIL and Phelps 3525:

(NOTE: DOES NOT WORK WHEN USING ssh)

To edit hello.cpp with atom on CSIL, type:

atom hello.cpp

What should happen is that the Unix command prompt returns immediately, but that after a few seconds, a window pops up with the atom editor

What if no window pops up?

Are you are probably not logged into a machine directly in CSIL or Phelps 3525? If not: we told you so.

In that case, see the options for using atom remotely, listed next.

Remote Options

Visual Studio Code always works best when it is run directly on the machine at which you are physically sitting. That is:

  • If you are at a machine in Phelps 3525, or the CSIL lab, and you run atom directly on that machine, all will be well (typically)
  • If you are sitting at your own Windows or Mac machine, or ssh’d in from your own Linux machine, your best bet is to install atom locally on your machine, and edit there.

But how do I access my file and the compilers on CSIL in that case?

Good question. There several options.

  • The most straightforward, but possibly error prone option, is to just copy files back and forth. There are various file copy programs
  • A second option is to use a github repo to move the files back and forth between your local system, and CSIL. This will give you lots of practice with doing git add, git commit, git push, and git pull. However, it has the following down side: it means that you will need to do a commit with every edit. That is typically not the best practice. We typically want to do a commit with each unit of meaningful work, i.e. when you’ve added a a feature, fixed a bug, etc. Doing it with every edit that you want to test will have you committing work a bit too often. That might not be the worst thing; new users of git tend to err on the side of having too few commits. But still, it isn’t the best practice.
  • The best way, if you can get it to work, is something called sshfs. This is a way of literally mounting your CSIL home directory so that it appears to be local hard drive on your own computer. That is super useful, but deserves a page of its own, which you can find here: sshfs

Installing code on Windows, Mac, Linux

For download and installation instructions, visit: