Software Carpentry: University of Florida J. Wayne Reitz Union

UPDATES!

Room has been changed to the Reitz Union room G310 Thursday and room G320 Friday We were able to book a larger room. Unfortunatly we couldn't get the same room both days but they are adjacent and located on the 3rd floor of the Reitz Union. If you're coming from off campus, please let an organizer know so we can talk parking.

40 seats availible! With the new room we can accept up to 40 signups! There are still a few left so hurry up and sign up now.

General Information

Etherpad

http://pad.software-carpentry.org/2016-03-24-UFII-SWC

Software Carpentry's mission is to help scientists and engineers get more work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic developer skills for scientific computing. 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 computing problems.

The University of Florida Informatics Institute has generously volunteered space and resources for this workshop in order to advance the skillset of the UF community. The organizers are members of the White Lab in the department of Wildlife Ecology and the Advanced Computing and Information Systems Lab in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. All instructors and helpers are volunteering their time to help UF, and you!

For more information on what Software Carpentry teaches and why, please see our paper "Best Practices for Scientific Computing".

Who: The course is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students interested in learning computing skills. Registration is open to anyone at the University of Florida and is first come, first serve. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: J. Wayne Reitz Union, Room G310 Thursday and Room G320 Friday. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a few specific software packages installed (listed below). They are also required to abide by Software Carpentry's Code of Conduct.

Contact: Please mail Matthew Collins at mcollins@acis.ufl.edu or Henry Senyondo at henerysenyondo@ufl.edu for more information.

Schedule

Surveys

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

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey

Day 1

09:00	Automating tasks with the Unix shell
10:30	Coffee
12:00	Lunch break
13:00	Building programs with R
14:30	Coffee
16:45	Wrap-up

Day 2

09:00	Version control with Git
10:30	Coffee
12:00	Lunch break
13:00	Managing data with SQL
14:30	Coffee
16:45	Wrap-up

Syllabus

The Unix Shell

Files and directories
History and tab completion
Pipes and redirection
Looping over files
Creating and running shell scripts
Finding things
Reference...

Programming in R

Working with vectors and data frames
Reading and plotting data
Creating and using functions
Loops and conditionals
Using R from the command line
Reference...

Version Control with Git

Creating a repository
Recording changes to files: add, commit, ...
Viewing changes: status, diff, ...
Ignoring files
Working on the web: clone, pull, push, ...
Resolving conflicts
Open licenses
Where to host work, and why
Reference...

Managing Data with SQL

Reading and sorting data
Filtering with where
Calculating new values on the fly
Handling missing values
Combining values using aggregation
Combining information from multiple tables using join
Creating, modifying, and deleting data
Programming with databases
Reference...

Setup

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.

The Bash Shell

Bash is a commonly-used shell that gives you the power to do simple tasks more quickly.

Windows

Download the Git for Windows installer.
Run the installer and follow the steps bellow:
1. Click on "Next".
2. Click on "Next".
3. Click on "Next".
4. Click on "Next".
5. Click on "Next".
6. Select "Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt" and click on "Next". If you forgot to do this programs that you need for the workshop will not work properly. If this happens rerun the installer and select the appropriate option.
7. Click on "Next". Keep "Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings" selected.
8. Select "Use Windows' default console window" and click on "Next".
9. Click on "Next".
10. Click on "Finish".

This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.

Mac OS X

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

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

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).

Windows

Git should be installed on your computer as part of your Bash install (described above).

Mac OS X

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.

Linux

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 yum install git.

Text 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. The default text editor on Mac OS X 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.

Windows

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.

Mac OS X

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 Text Wrangler or Sublime Text.

Linux

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.

R

R is a programming language that is especially powerful for data exploration, visualization, and statistical analysis. To interact with R, we use RStudio.

Windows

Install R by downloading and running this .exe file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE.

Mac OS X

Install R by downloading and running this .pkg file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE.

Linux

You can download the binary files for your distribution from CRAN. Or you can use your package manager (e.g. for Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install r-base and for Fedora run sudo yum install R). Also, please install the RStudio IDE.

SQLite

SQL is a specialized programming language used with databases. We use a simple database manager called SQLite in our lessons.

Windows

The Software Carpentry Windows Installer installs SQLite for Windows. If you used the installer to configure nano, you don't need to run it again.

Mac OS X

SQLite comes pre-installed on Mac OS X.

Linux

SQLite comes pre-installed on Linux.

If you installed Anaconda, it also has a copy of SQLite without support to readline. Instructors will provide a workaround for it if needed.