Nov 8-9, 2018
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Instructors: Ben Waugh
Helpers: Edd Edmondson, Zara Grout, Josh Tingey
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 first-year postgraduate students in high-energy physics. Some prior experience of using Python would be an advantage>
Where: Room B1.15A, Cruciform Building, UCL, Gower Street WC1E 6BT. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.
When: Nov 8-9, 2018. Add to your Google Calendar.
Requirements: Participants must have access to a Linux or Mac OSX system, either a laptop or a machine that they can connect to remotely using SSH. 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: Please let us know in advance if you have any specific access requirements.
Contact: Please email b.waugh@ucl.ac.uk for more information.
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
| Before | Pre-workshop survey |
| 10:00 | Automating tasks with the Unix shell |
| 11:15 | Break |
| 12:45 | Lunch break |
| 13:45 | Version control with Git |
| 15:00 | Break |
| 16:15 | Wrap-up |
| 10:00 | Building programs with Python and ROOT (part 1) |
| 11:15 | Break |
| 12:45 | Lunch break |
| 13:45 | Building programs with Python and ROOT (part 2) |
| 15:00 | Break |
| 16:15 | Wrap-up |
We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.
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.
Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to
right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click
Open on the pop up window.
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. It is installed along with Git.
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. In this workshop we will using Python to write an analysis program, but within the program we will be using features from ROOT via its Python bindings package PyROOT.
Rather than attempting to give comprehensive instructions for every operating system and version that you might be using, we ask you to run the given test script on the system you intend to use during the workshop, and let us know before the workshop of any problems you encounter, so we can help you solve them.