This course will be taught with Python and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK). You should install both on your machine at your earliest convenience. As of September 8, 2009, the latest version of Python is 2.6.2, and the latest version of NLTK is 2.0b5. As a note, the NLTK download page seems to only have 2.0b4 for Windows; you can get 2.0b5 from this alternate source. You should install Numpy and Matplotlib (needed for the third assignment), also available from the NLTK download page.
To find out what version of Python you have, run the command 'python -V' in a shell. To find out what version of NLTK you have, in Python, type 'import nltk' followed by 'nltk.__version__'. NLTK 2.0b5 fixes some warnings from 2.0b4. If you've installed 2.0b4 already on Windows, a reinstall of the newer NLTK version is how you "upgrade".
If your preferred development environment is Eclipse, you might be interested in Pydev, a Python plugin for Eclipse.
For the second assignment, you'll need to install nltk_contrib, which has the module for finite-state transducers. Follow these instructions:
| This page, first created: 14 Sep 2009; last updated: |
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