Purdue University (Rawls Hall)

100 S. Grant Street, West Lafayette, IN
March 17-18, 2014
9:00 am - 4:30 pm

Instructors: Neal Davis, Joshua Herr, Jeff Shelton

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.)

Content: The syllabus for this bootcamp will include:

Contact: Please mail admin@software-carpentry.org for more information.

Tentative Schedule

Day 1 - Monday, March 17th
8:30 - 9:00 Installation help (optional)
9:00 - 9:10 Introductions
9:10 - 10:35 The Shell
10:35 - 10:50 Break
10:50 - 12:15 Introduction to Python
12:15 - 1:15 Lunch
1:15 - 2:45 Scientific Programming II
2:45 - 3:00 Break
3:00-4:30 Python Flow Control and Functions
Day - Tuesday, March 18th
9:00 - 11:00 Introduction to Git
11:00 - 11:15 Break
11:15 - 12:30 Git Workflow
12:30 - 1:30 Lunch
1:30 - 2:45 Testing & Debugging with Python
2:45 - 3:00 Break
3:00 - 4:30 Data Analysis with Pandas (Python)
4:30 - 5:00 Discussion and Wrap Up

Typical Setup

Virtual Machine

Installation issues can and do happen. To ensure that you can continue to participate in a lesson even if one of your software programs fails, we provide a Linux virtual machine that contains all the necessary software pre-installed. Please install VirtualBox and download this virtual machine image. Load the VM into VirtualBox by doing Import Appliance and loading the .ova file.

Advanced Setup

For advanced users who would like to install the individual required software packages directly on their laptops (rather than downloading the virtual machine), we provide links below for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

The Bash Shell

Bash is a commonly-used shell. Using a shell gives you more power to do more tasks more quickly with your computer.

Windows / Git Bash

Install Git for Windows by downloading and running the installer. This will provide you with both Git as well as Bash in the Git Bash program.

Mac OS X / Bash

The default shell in all versions of Mac OS X is bash, so no need to install anything. You access bash from the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities). You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.

Linux / Bash

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.

Editor

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.

Windows / Editor

Notepad++ is a popular free code editor for Windows.

Mac OS X / Editor

We recommend Text Wrangler or Sublime Text.

Linux / Editor

Kate is one option for Linux users.

Git

Git is a state-of-the-art version control system. It lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com.

Windows / Git Bash

Install Git for Windows by downloading and running the installer. This will provide you with both Git as well as Bash in the Git Bash program.

Mac OS X / Git

Installing Git may require you to first install XCode. This is a very large download (several gigabytes), so please do it before arriving at the bootcamp.

For Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8:

Go to the Xcode website. Get XCode from the App Store making certain to install the command line tools (from the Download preferences pane). Git is included in the command line tools.

For Mac OS X 10.6

If you have Mac OS X 10.6, first get XCode by going to the Apple developer site. You have to sign in with an Apple ID linked to a Developer account. If you don't have one, you can register and create one. Once you log in, go to page 8 and find "XCode 3.2.6 and iOS SDK 4.3 for Snow Leopard". Click to open that section, and then download the .dmg file. Finally, install just git.

Linux / Git

If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager (e.g. apt-get).

Python

Python is becoming more and more popular in scientific computing, and it's a great language for teaching general programming concepts due to its easy-to-read syntax. We will be using Python version 2.7. Installing all the scientific packages for Python individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend using an all-in-one installer.

Windows / Python

For Windows we recommend the Enthought Canopy distribution since it seems to work well with Git Bash.

For other options check the Python4Astronomers page on installing scientific Python.

Mac OS X / Python

We recommend the all-in-one scientific Python installer Anaconda. (Installation requires using the shell and if you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself just download the installer and we'll help you at the boot camp.)

  1. Download the installer that matches your operating system and save it in your home folder.
  2. Open a terminal window.
  3. Type 
    bash Anaconda-
    and then press tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear.
  4. Press enter. You will follow the text-only prompts. When there is a colon at the bottom of the screen press the down arrow to move down through the text. Type 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).

Linux / Python

We recommend the all-in-one scientific Python installer Anaconda. (Installation requires using the shell and if you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself just download the installer and we'll help you at the boot camp.)

  1. Download the installer that matches your operating system and save it in your home folder.
  2. Open a terminal window..
  3. Type 
    bash Anaconda-
    and then press tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear.
  4. Press enter. You will follow the text-only prompts. When there is a colon at the bottom of the screen press the down arrow to move down through the text. Type 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).

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