wrote the readme and doc landing page, added .github community folder

.github/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# Release 0.1.0
+
+Initial public release.
+
+### Contributors
+This release contains contributions from:
+
+Ville Bergholm, Josh Izaac, Maria Schuld, Christian Gogolin, and Nathan Killoran.

.github/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+# Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct
+
+## Our Pledge
+
+In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
+
+## Our Standards
+
+Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment include:
+
+* Using welcoming and inclusive language
+* Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
+* Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
+* Focusing on what is best for the community
+* Showing empathy towards other community members
+
+Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:
+
+* The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or advances
+* Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
+* Public or private harassment
+* Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission
+* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting
+
+## Our Responsibilities
+
+Project maintainers are responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any instances of unacceptable behavior.
+
+Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.
+
+## Scope
+
+This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.
+
+## Enforcement
+
+Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting the project team at research@xanadu.ai. The project team will review and investigate all complaints, and will respond in a way that it deems appropriate to the circumstances. The project team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident. Further details of specific enforcement policies may be posted separately.
+
+Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other members of the project's leadership.
+
+## Attribution
+
+This Code of Conduct is adapted from the [Contributor Covenant][homepage], version 1.4, available at [http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4][version]
+
+[homepage]: http://contributor-covenant.org
+[version]: http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/

.github/CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
+# Contributing to PennyLane
+
+Thank you for taking the time to contribute to PennyLane!
+:confetti_ball: :tada: :fireworks: :balloon:
+
+PennyLane is a collaborative effort with the quantum computation and machine learning
+community - while we will continue working on adding new and exciting features to PennyLane,
+we invite you to join us and suggest improvements, research ideas, or even just to discuss how
+PennyLane fits into your workflow.
+
+## How can I get involved in the community?
+
+If you want to contribute but don't know where to start, start by checking out our
+[documentation](https://pennylane.readthedocs.io). Have a go working through some of the tutorials,
+and having a look at the PennyLane API and code documentation to see how things work under the hood.
+
+
+## How can I contribute?
+
+It's up to you!
+
+* **Be a part of our community** - respond to questions, issues, and
+  provide exciting updates of the projects/experiments you are investigating with PennyLane
+
+  You can even write your own PennyLane tutorials, or blog about your simulation results.
+  Send us the link, and we may even add it to our documentation as an external resource!
+
+* **Test the cutting-edge PennyLane releases** - clone our GitHub repository, and keep up to
+  date with the latest features. If you run into any bugs, make a bug report on our
+  [issue tracker](https://github.com/XanaduAI/pennylane/issues).
+
+* **Report bugs** - even if you are not using the development branch of PennyLane, if you come
+  across any bugs or issues, make a bug report. See the next section for more details on the bug
+  reporting procedure.
+
+* **Suggest new features and enhancements** - use the GitHub issue tracker
+  and let us know what will make PennyLane even better for your workflow.
+
+* **Contribute to our documentation, or to PennyLane directly** - if you would like to add
+  to our documentation, or suggest improvements/changes, let us know - or even submit a pull request directly. All authors
+  who have contributed to the PennyLane codebase will be listed alongside the latest release.
+
+* **Develop a PennyLane plugin** - PennyLane is designed to be device and quantum framework agnostic;
+  the quantum node device can be switched out to any other compatible devices, with no code changes necessary.
+  We would love to support even more devices and quantum frameworks. If you would like to write a PennyLane plugin,
+  see the [developer overview](https://pennylane.readthedocs.io/en/latest/API/overview.html) section of our documentation.
+
+  Ask us if you have any questions, and send a link to your plugin to support@xanadu.ai so we can highlight it in
+  our documentation!
+
+Appetite whetted? Keep reading below for all the nitty-gritty on reporting bugs, contributing to the documentation,
+and submitting pull requests.
+
+## Reporting bugs
+
+We use the [GitHub issue tracker](https://github.com/XanaduAI/pennylane/issues) to keep track of all reported
+bugs and issues. If you find a bug, or have an issue with PennyLane, please submit a bug report! User
+reports help us make PennyLane better on all fronts.
+
+To submit a bug report, please work your way through the following checklist:
+
+* **Search the issue tracker to make sure the bug wasn't previously reported**. If it was, you can add a comment
+  to expand on the issue if you would like.
+
+* **Fill out the issue template**. If you cannot find an existing issue addressing the problem, create a new
+  issue by filling out the [issue template](.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md). This template is added automatically to the comment
+  box when you create a new issue. Please try and add as many details as possible!
+
+* Try and make your issue as **clear, concise, and descriptive** as possible. Include a clear and descriptive title,
+  and include all code snippets/commands required to reproduce the problem. If you're not sure what caused the issue,
+  describe what you were doing when the issue occurred.
+
+## Suggesting features, document additions, and enhancements
+
+To suggest features and enhancements, please use the GitHub tracker. There is no template required for
+feature requests and enhancements, but here are a couple of suggestions for things to include.
+
+* **Use a clear and descriptive title**
+* **Provide a step-by-step description of the suggested feature**.
+
+  - If the feature is related to any theoretical results in quantum machine learning or quantum computation,
+    provide any relevant equations. Alternatively, provide references to papers/preprints,
+    with the relevant sections/equations noted.
+  - If the feature is workflow-related, or related to the use of PennyLane,
+    explain why the enhancement would be useful, and where/how you would like to use it.
+
+* **For documentation additions**, point us towards any relevant equations/papers/preprints,
+    with the relevant sections/equations noted. Short descriptions of its use/importance would also be useful.
+
+## Pull requests
+
+If you would like to contribute directly to the PennyLane codebase, simply make a fork of the master branch, and
+then when ready, submit a [pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/about-pull-requests). We encourage everyone
+to have a go forking and modifying the PennyLane source code, however, we have a couple of guidelines on pull
+requests to ensure the main master branch of PennyLane conforms to existing standards and quality.
+
+### General guidelines
+
+* **Do not make a pull request for minor typos/cosmetic code changes** - make an issue instead.
+* **For major features, consider making an independent app** that runs on top of PennyLane, rather than modifying
+  PennyLane directly.
+
+### Before submitting
+
+Before submitting a pull request, please make sure the following is done:
+
+* **All new features must include a unit test.** If you've fixed a bug or added code that should be tested,
+  add a test to the test directory!
+* **All new functions and code must be clearly commented and documented.** Have a look through the source code at some of
+  the existing function docstrings - the easiest approach is to simply copy an existing docstring and modify it as appropriate.
+  If you do make documentation changes, make sure that the docs build and render correctly by running `make docs`.
+* **Ensure that the test suite passes**, by running `make test`.
+* **Make sure the modified code in the pull request conforms to the PEP8 coding standard.** The PennyLane source code
+  conforms to [PEP8 standards](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/). We check all of our code against
+  [Pylint](https://www.pylint.org/). To lint modified files, simply install `pip install pylint`, and then from the source code
+  directory, run `pylint pennylane/path/to/file.py`.
+
+### Submitting the pull request
+* When ready, submit your fork as a [pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/about-pull-requests) to the PennyLane
+  repository, filling out the [pull request template](.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md). This template is added automatically
+  to the comment box when you create a new issue.
+
+* When describing the pull request, please include as much detail as possible regarding the changes made/new features
+  added/performance improvements. If including any bug fixes, mention the issue numbers associated with the bugs.
+
+* Once you have submitted the pull request, three things will automatically occur:
+
+  - The **test suite** will automatically run on [Travis CI](https://travis-ci.org/XanaduAI/pennylane)
+    to ensure that the all tests continue to pass.
+  - Once the test suite is finished, a **code coverage report** will be generated on
+    [Codecov](https://codecov.io/gh/XanaduAI/pennylane). This will calculate the percentage of PennyLane
+    covered by the test suite, to ensure that all new code additions are adequately tested.
+  - Finally, the **code quality** is calculated by [Codacy](https://app.codacy.com/app/XanaduAI/pennylane/dashboard),
+    to ensure all new code additions adhere to our code quality standards.
+
+  Based on these reports, we may ask you to make small changes to your branch before merging the pull request into the master branch. Alternatively, you can also
+  [grant us permission to make changes to your pull request branch](https://help.github.com/articles/allowing-changes-to-a-pull-request-branch-created-from-a-fork/).
+
+:fireworks: Thank you for contributing to PennyLane! :fireworks:
+
+\- The PennyLane team

.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md

@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+#### Before posting an issue
+
+Search existing GitHub issues to make sure the issue does not already exist:
+  https://github.com/xanaduai/pennylane/issues
+
+If posting a PennyLane issue, delete everything above the dashed line, and fill in the template.
+
+If making a feature request, delete the following template and describe, in detail, the feature and why it is needed.
+
+For general technical details:
+* Check out our documentation: https://pennylane.readthedocs.io
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+#### Issue description
+
+Description of the issue - include code snippets and screenshots here if relevant.
+
+* *Expected behavior:* (What you expect to happen)
+
+* *Actual behavior:* (What actually happens)
+
+* *Reproduces how often:* (What percentage of the time does it reproduce?)
+
+
+#### System information
+
+* **Operating system:**
+  Include the operating system version if you can, e.g. Ubuntu Linux 16.04
+
+
+* **PennyLane version:**
+  This can be found by running
+  python -c "import pennylane as sf; print(sf.version())"
+
+* **Python version:**
+  This can be found by running: python --version
+
+
+* **NumPy and SciPy versions:**
+  These can be found by running
+  python -c "import numpy as np; import scipy as sp; print(np.__version__,sp.__version__)"
+
+* **Installation method:**
+
+  Did you install PennyLane via pip, or directly from the GitHub repository source code?
+
+  If installed via GitHub, what branch/commit did you use? You can get this information by opening a terminal in the
+  PennyLane source code directory, and pasting the output of:
+  git log -n 1 --pretty=format:"%H%n%an%n%ad%n%s"
+
+
+#### Source code and tracebacks
+
+Please include any additional code snippets and error tracebacks related to the issue here.
+
+
+#### Additional information
+
+Any additional information, configuration or data that might be necessary to reproduce the issue.

.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+### General guidelines
+
+* Do not make a pull request for minor typos/cosmetic code changes - make an issue instead.
+
+### Before submitting
+
+Before submitting a pull request, please make sure the following is done:
+
+* All new features must include a unit test.
+  If you've fixed a bug or added code that should be tested, add a test to the test directory!
+
+* All new functions and code must be clearly commented and documented.
+  Have a look through the source code at some of the existing function docstrings - the easiest
+  approach is to simply copy an existing docstring and modify it as appropriate.
+  If you do make documentation changes, make sure that the docs build and render correctly by running `make docs`.
+
+* Ensure that the test suite passes, by running `make test`.
+
+* Make sure the modified code in the pull request conforms to the PEP8 coding standard.
+  The PennyLane source code conforms to PEP8 standards (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/).
+  We check all of our code against Pylint (https://www.pylint.org/). To lint modified files, simply
+  `pip install pylint`, and then from the source code directory, run `pylint pennylane/path/to/file.py`.
+
+### Pull request template
+
+When ready to submit, delete everything above the dashed line and fill in the pull request template.
+
+Please include as much detail as possible regarding the changes made/new features
+added/performance improvements. If including any bug fixes, mention the issue numbers associated with the bugs.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+**Description of the Change:**
+
+**Benefits:**
+
+**Possible Drawbacks:**
+
+**Related GitHub Issues:**

.gitignore

@@ -22,5 +22,6 @@ notebooks/*
 *.pdf
 *Notes.bib
 *.synctex.gz
+.pytest_cache/*
 
 !formalism/tasks.pdf