Jan 7-8, 2019
8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Instructors: Bob Freeman, Jason Williams
Helpers: Mary Leverance, James McCartney, Joe Paparo, Les Seigneur
Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Best Practices for Scientific Computing".
Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.
Where: Engineering Research Center ENRC 3211, 700 Research Center Blvd, Fayetteville, AR 72701. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.
When: Jan 7-8, 2019. Add to your Google Calendar.
Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below). They are also required to abide by Software Carpentry's Code of Conduct.
Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:
Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please get in touch (using contact details below) and we will attempt to provide them.
Contact: Please email jpummil@uark.edu for more information.
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
| 08:30 | Continental Breakfast |
| 09:00 | Automating tasks with the Unix shell |
| 10:30 | Coffee |
| 12:00 | Lunch break |
| 13:00 | Building programs with Python |
| 14:30 | Coffee |
| 16:00 | Wrap-up |
| 16:30 | END |
| 08:30 | Continental Breakfast |
| 09:00 | Web scraping with Python |
| 10:30 | Coffee |
| 12:00 | Lunch break |
| 13:00 | Follow-up OR Version Control with Git/GitKraken |
| 14:30 | Coffee |
| 16:00 | Wrap-up |
| 16:30 | Post-workshop Survey |
| 16:40 | END |
We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.
To participate in a Software Carpentry workshop, you will need access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.
We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.
Bash is a commonly-used shell that gives you the power to do simple tasks more quickly.
cmd and press [Enter])setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"
SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.exit then pressing [Enter]This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.
The default shell in all versions of macOS is Bash, so no
need to install anything. You access Bash from the Terminal
(found in
/Applications/Utilities).
See the Git installation video tutorial
for an example on how to open the Terminal.
You may want to keep
Terminal in your dock for this workshop.
The default shell is usually Bash, but if your
machine is set up differently you can run it by opening a
terminal and typing bash. There is no need to
install anything.
When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is
optimized for writing code, with features like automatic
color-coding of key words. The default text editor on macOS and
Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being
intuitive. If you accidentally find yourself stuck in it, try
typing the escape key, followed by :q! (colon, lower-case 'q',
exclamation mark), then hitting Return to return to the shell.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It is installed along with Git.
Others editors that you can use are Notepad++ or Sublime Text. Be aware that you must add its installation directory to your system path. Please ask your instructor to help you do this.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open nano. It should be pre-installed.
Others editors that you can use are Text Wrangler or Sublime Text.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It should be pre-installed.
Others editors that you can use are Gedit, Kate or Sublime Text.
Python is a popular language for research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as well. Installing all of its research packages individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend Anaconda, an all-in-one installer.
Regardless of how you choose to install it, please make sure you install Python version 3.x (e.g., 3.6 is fine).
We will teach Python using the Jupyter notebook, a programming environment that runs in a web browser. For this to work you will need a reasonably up-to-date browser. The current versions of the Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers are all supported (some older browsers, including Internet Explorer version 9 and below, are not).
bash Anaconda3-and then press tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear. If it does not, navigate to the folder where you downloaded the file, for example with:
cd DownloadsThen, try again.
yes and
press enter to approve the license. Press enter to approve the
default location for the files. Type yes and
press enter to prepend Anaconda to your PATH
(this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).
Web scraping is the activity of automating retrieval of information from a web service designed for human interaction. This activity is one of the most common methods of data collection, but is made more difficult due to the ever-evolving web.
Please download the workshop materials from Harvard University IQSS's workshops website by saving them on your desktop, and uncompressing the zip archive using the built-in OS functions or by using your favorite unzip tool.
Version control can be used to keep track of versions of a piece of work that either a single person is working on, or a shared document. GitKraken is a GUI interface to the version control tool Git, which mirrors the steps and vocabulary of Git but with an easier learning curve.
Please prepare by: