General Information

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: 111 E. Wacker Drive, Suite 222, Chicago, IL 60601. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

When: Oct 17, 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).

Code of Conduct: Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.

Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:

• The room is wheelchair / scooter accessible.
• Accessible restrooms are available.

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 margaret.sutherland@chanzuckerberg.com or aclavijo@chanzuckerberg.com for more information.

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Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey

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Schedule

Before	Pre-workshop survey
	Setup	Download files required for the lesson
09:00	1. Running and Quitting	How can I run Python programs?
09:15	2. Variables and Assignment	How can I store data in programs?
09:35	3. Data Types and Type Conversion	What kinds of data do programs store? How can I convert one type to another?
09:55	4. Built-in Functions and Help	How can I use built-in functions? How can I find out what they do? What kind of errors can occur in programs?
10:20	5. Morning Coffee	Break
10:35	6. Libraries	How can I use software that other people have written? How can I find out what that software does?
10:55	7. Reading Tabular Data into DataFrames	How can I read tabular data?
11:15	8. Pandas DataFrames	How can I do statistical analysis of tabular data?
11:45	9. Plotting	How can I plot my data? How can I save my plot for publishing?
12:15	10. Lunch	Break
13:00	11. Lists	How can I store multiple values?
13:20	12. For Loops	How can I make a program do many things?
13:45	13. Looping Over Data Sets	How can I process many data sets with a single command?
14:00	14. Writing Functions	How can I create my own functions?
14:25	15. Variable Scope	How do function calls actually work? How can I determine where errors occurred?
14:45	16. Afternoon Coffee	Break
15:00	17. Conditionals	How can programs do different things for different data?
15:25	18. Programming Style	How can I make my programs more readable? How do most programmers format their code? How can programs check their own operation?
15:55	19. Wrap-Up	What have we learned? What else is out there and where do I find it?
16:15	20. Feedback	How did the class go?
16:30	Finish

We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.

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Syllabus

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Setup

This workshop has custom installation instructions.

In addition, 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.