Online
March 11, 2020
10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Instructors: Fahad A Khan
Helpers: Shafaq Chaudhry, Mark Durbin, Carlos Acevdeo, Ezequiel Gioia
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 and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
The best way to learn how to program is to do something useful, so this introduction to Python is built around a common scientific task: data analysis. We are studying inflammation in patients who have been given a new treatment for arthritis, and need to analyze the first dozen data sets of their daily inflammation. The data sets are stored in comma-separated values (CSV) format. We will learn to do basic operations such reading data from files, processing & analyzing the data, generating plots, and automating tasks.
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. This is a basics level workshop for an audience who intend to start working with Python in the future. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.
Where: This training will take place online via Zoom. Once you register for the workshop, you will recieve Zoom meeting details with other important information and instructions via email.
When: March 11, 2020. Add to your Google Calendar.
Requirements: Participants must have access to a computer 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).
Accessibility: We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.
Contact: Please email ResearchIT@ucf.edu for more information.
Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.
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.
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
| Before | Pre-workshop survey |
| 10:00 | Python Fundamentals |
| 10:30 | Analyzing Patient Data |
| 11:30 | Visualizing Tabular Data |
| 12:00 | Lunch break |
| 13:00 | Repeating Actions with Loops |
| 13:30 | Storing Multiple Values in Lists |
| 14:00 | Analyzing Data from Multiple Files |
| 14:30 | Making Choices |
| 15:00 | Creating Functions (Optional) |
| 15:30 | Errors and Exceptions (Optional) |
| 16:00 | Post-workshop Survey |
| 16:10 | END |
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.
If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the official website to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.
Like other Carpentries workshops, you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors. To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..) and the window for the Zoom video conference client open. In order to see both at once, we recommend using one of the following set up options:
Python is a popular language for research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as well. We will teach Python using the Jupyter Notebook; a programming environment that runs in a web browser. For the workshop, we will provide you with a JupyterHub server where you will be able to login and perform your coding tasks on a Jupyter Notebook.
If you wish to install tools on your own system, then note that Jupyter Notebook can be installed using Anaconda. Installing all of its research packages individually can be a bit difficult, so that is why we recommend Anaconda, an all-in-one installer. 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).
You can also install Python without Anaconda. Also, you can also work with Python without using Jupyter Notebook. You will need to install Python and a programmer-friendly code editor. Regardless of how you choose to install it, please make sure you install Python version 3.x (e.g., 3.6 is fine).
bash Anaconda3-and then press Tab to autocomplete the full file name. The name of file you just downloaded should appear.
yes and press enter to approve the license.
Press Enter (or Return)
to approve the default location
for the files.
Type yes and press
Enter (or Return)
to prepend Anaconda to your PATH
(this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).