August 15-16, 2018
9:00am - 4.30pm
Instructors: Miao Sun, Hao Ye, Gaurav Vaidya, Geraldine Klarenberg
Helpers: Ben Toh, Geraldine Klarenberg, Brian Stucky, Punam Amratia
The UF Carpentries Club is offering a two day Software Carpentry workshop to help the UF community get started learning R and common software development tools such as the Unix shell, SQL, and Git. Need to learn some programming for a class? Have data you're scared to work with in Excel? Want to collaborate effectively with your peers? We were there once too. Come start learning with us.
Our instructors are trained by the Carpentries in evidence-based pedagogy and our materials have been developed collaboratively over years by dozens of contributors. The University of Florida Informatics Institute and Biodiversity Institute have generously volunteered space and resources for this workshop in order to advance the skillset of the UF community. The organizers, instructors, and helpers are volunteering their time to help UF, and you!
The international Software Carpentry organization 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.
Who: The course is open to all members of the UF community: students, staff, and faculty. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.
Where: Computer Science Builing CSE 220, 432 Newell Drive. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.
When: August 15-16, 2018. 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 punam.amratia@ufl.edu for more information.
REGISTER HERE Note that registration is limited to 24-30 participants, if you are unable to register please feel free to sign up on our waiting-list and you'll be the first to know of the next carpentry workshop
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
| Before | Pre-workshop survey |
| 09:00 | Automating tasks with the Unix shell |
| 10:45 | Coffee |
| 12:30 | Lunch break |
| 13:30 | Version control with Git |
| 14:45 | Coffee |
| 16:15 | Wrap-up |
| 16:30 | END |
| 09:00 | Plotting and Programming with Python |
| 10:45 | Coffee |
| 12:30 | Lunch break |
| 13:30 | Plotting and Programming with Python |
| 14:45 | Coffee |
| 16:15 | 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. Also, please fill out this short feedback form at the end of each day that can be found HERE.
add, commit, ...status, diff, ...clone, pull, push, ...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.
Git is a version control system that 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. You will need a supported web browser (current versions of Chrome, Firefox or Safari, or Internet Explorer version 9 or above).
You will need an account at github.com for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already. Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For example, you may want to review these instructions for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.
Git should be installed on your computer as part of your Bash install (described above).
For OS X 10.9 and higher, install Git for Mac
by downloading and running the most recent "mavericks" installer from
this list.
After installing Git, there will not be anything in your /Applications folder,
as Git is a command line program.
For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the
most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard"
available here.
If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to
install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run
sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run
sudo dnf install git.
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. To install it, download the Software Carpentry Windows installer and double click on the file to run it. This installer requires an active internet connection.
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).
Your computer very likely already has Python 3 installed. To confirm, open a terminal window and run
python --version. If that command doesn't report "Python 3.7" or something similar, try running
python3. If that doesn't work, you will need to install Python 3. Follow these instructions:
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).