Organize Deliberately

Overview

Teaching: 5 min
Exercises: 5 min
Questions
  • How should I organize my research software project?

Objectives
  • Explain Noble’s rules and emphasize the principle of organizing and naming files to reflect their content or purpose.

Project organization

How Is Your Project Currently Organized?

Draw a diagram of how your project is currently organized?

  • Is this documented anywhere?
  • Would it be intuitive for a newcomer?
  • Are there any changes you could make to take advantage of common conventions?

Key Points

  • Name each project component (code, data, metadata, etc.) according to its content or purpose.

  • Group similar project files into dedicated directories.

  • Take advantage of widely used project organization conventions unless there is a compelling reason not to.