Recommended Software for AI Students

Institute for Artificial Intelligence

The University of Georgia

Last Updated 24 June 2010

This web page replaces the "lend-out disc" that we formerly distributed to students. Most of this software is for Windows, but major items have Mac and Linux counterparts. Some of these items are locally written and not available elsewhere.

Windows enhancements

AiWinUserInterface.reg, locally written registry script to tell Windows to show filename extensions, always show window menus, and show "Run" on the Start Menu.

Desktop Icon Save and Restore, for saving and restoring your desktop layout. Especially useful if you change video settings or roam among computers with different video modes.

UNXUTILS — UNIX commands such as diff, grep, etc., from Gnu. After installing, you must edit the file search path yourself (follow instructions given). [An invitation: If an AI student would like to use WiX or a similar package to make a proper Windows installer for this software, it would be a valuable service to the community.]

Remote access to IAI files

AI VPN Installer for 32-bit Windows systems only. (Handy but not required for the VPN; you can simply tell your computer to connect to our VPN at the appropriate address.)

WinSCP SFTP client for SFTP access to our servers.

General-purpose text editor

Notepad++, for editing programs and LaTeX documents.

PDF file viewer

Adobe Reader.

LaTeX scientific word processor

LaTeX users will need Notepad++ and Adobe Reader, above.

MiKTeX distribution of TeX and LaTeX.
Caution: When installing, be sure to specify "Letter" not "A4" as the default paper size.

(My preferred workflow is latex, dvipdf, skipping the PostScript (ps) stage, so I don't need a PostScript viewer.)

LaTeX Without Command Prompt — This locally written utility allows you to right-click on .tex and .dvi files and process and view them in an open Windows folder without using the command prompt or the MiKTeX GUI. Requires MiKTeX or equivalent software installed.

University of Georgia thesis style files and documentation.

AI Software

SWI-Prolog (Prolog compiler).

Lispworks (Lisp compiler).

Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio is a commercial product including compilers for Visual Basic, C#, and F#. There are many ways to obtain it — you can spend anything from $0 to $5000 depending on your status and the type of license you need. The following are your main options.

Visual Studio Express (editor and compiler for one language at a time) is free for all users and surprisingly useful. Obtain it from http://www.microsoft.com/express/Windows. Recommended for anyone who need to get started immediately at no cost.

Visual Studio Professional (the normal commercial software development product, including Installshield) is normally about $700 from vendors such as Programmers' Paradise.

If you are a student or faculty member and want a regular license for Visual Studio Professional (with no limits on how you use it), you can obtain this for about $95 from JourneyEd and many other vendors, with proof of student or faculty status. Recommended for students and faculty who also do commercial work.

If you are a UGA employee wanting to use Visual Studio Professional on your home computer solely for UGA work, you can get it for about $20 from TEC Services.

If you are a student in Computer Science Department course (a course with a CSCI prefix), you can get this and other Microsoft products free through an agreement called MSDNAA, and can continue to use it after graduating, for noncommercial purposes only. Details at - http://msdnaa.cs.uga.edu . This is arranged through the Computer Science Department, not the IAI. Recommended for students.

Visual Studio Premium (like Professional with code profiling tools added) is normally about $5,000 from vendors such as Programmers' Paradise.

Visual Studio Premium is site-licensed for University computers. The IAI has an install disc; there is no limit on where we install it as long as the computers are owned by UGA. Installation discs can be obtained from SRS. This is what to do for UGA-owned computers.