University of Arizona

April 4-5, 2013
9:00 am - 4:30 pm

Instructors: C. Titus Brown, Karen Cranston, Rich Enbody, David Koop

What: Our goal is to help scientists and engineers become more productive by teaching them basic computing skills like program design, version control, testing, and task automation. In this two-day bootcamp, short tutorials will alternate with hands-on practical exercises. Participants will be encouraged both to help one another, and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems during and between sessions. Attendants are offered online office hours: regular events to get one-on-one help from Software Carpentry instructors, online.

Who: The course is aimed at postgraduate students and other scientists who are familiar with basic programming concepts (like loops, conditionals, arrays, and functions) but need help to translate this knowledge into practical tools to help them work more productively.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a few specific software packages installed. (The list will be sent to participants a week before the bootcamp.)

We will cover the following topics:

Day 1: Python and automating data munging (i.e. cleaning) and summarization.

We'll talk about basic data loading, transformation, and summarization, as well as good practice for doing reproducible analyses and traps that await the unwary. While we will use Python and IPython Notebook, the lesson will be very applicable to those who use R as well. We will also discuss 'git' and github for version control.

Day 2: Shell, shell scripting, automation, and building data analysis pipelines

We'll take the approaches from Day 1 and combine them into an analysis pipeline that can be run on many files in an automated fashion, and show how to effectively automate data analysis.

Contact: Please mail for more information.

Registration will begin soon.