Library Carpentry lesson: An introduction to Git. What We Will Try to Do Begin to understand and use Git/GitHub. You will not be an expert by the end of the class. You will probably not even feel very comfortable using Git. This is okay. We want to make a start but, as with any skill, using Git takes practice. Be Excellent to Each Other If you spot someone in the class who is struggling with something and you think you know how to help, please give them a hand. Try not to do the task for them: instead explain the steps they need to take and what these steps will achieve. Be Patient With The Instructor and Yourself This is a big group, with different levels of knowledge, different computer systems. This isn’t your instructor’s full-time job (though if someone wants to pay them to play with computers all day they’d probably accept). They will do their best to make this session useful. This is your session. If you feel we are going too fast, then please put up a pink sticky. We can decide as a group what to cover.

This lesson in part of Software Carpentry workshop and teach novice programmers to write modular code and best practices for using R for data analysis. an introduction to R for non-programmers using gapminder data The goal of this lesson is to teach novice programmers to write modular code and best practices for using R for data analysis. R is commonly used in many scientific disciplines for statistical analysis and its array of third-party packages. We find that many scientists who come to Software Carpentry workshops use R and want to learn more. The emphasis of these materials is to give attendees a strong foundation in the fundamentals of R, and to teach best practices for scientific computing: breaking down analyses into modular units, task automation, and encapsulation. Note that this workshop will focus on teaching the fundamentals of the programming language R, and will not teach statistical analysis. The lesson contains more material than can be taught in a day. The instructor notes page has some suggested lesson plans suitable for a one or half day workshop. A variety of third party packages are used throughout this workshop. These are not necessarily the best, nor are they comprehensive, but they are packages we find useful, and have been chosen primarily for their usability.

Una introducción a R utilizando los datos de Gapminder. El objetivo de esta lección es enseñar a las programadoras principiantes a escribir códigos modulares y adoptar buenas prácticas en el uso de R para el análisis de datos. R nos provee un conjunto de paquetes desarrollados por terceros que se usan comúnmente en diversas disciplinas científicas para el análisis estadístico. Encontramos que muchos científicos que asisten a los talleres de Software Carpentry utilizan R y quieren aprender más. Nuestros materiales son relevantes ya que proporcionan a los asistentes una base sólida en los fundamentos de R y enseñan las mejores prácticas del cómputo científico: desglose del análisis en módulos, automatización tareas y encapsulamiento. Ten en cuenta que este taller se enfoca en los fundamentos del lenguaje de programación R y no en el análisis estadístico. A lo largo de este taller se utilizan una variedad de paquetes desarrolados por terceros, los cuales no son necesariamente los mejores ni se encuentran explicadas todas sus funcionalidades, pero son paquetes que consideramos útiles y han sido elegidos principalmente por su facilidad de uso.

This lesson is part of the Software Carpentry workshops that teach how to use version control with Git. Wolfman and Dracula have been hired by Universal Missions (a space services spinoff from Euphoric State University) to investigate if it is possible to send their next planetary lander to Mars. They want to be able to work on the plans at the same time, but they have run into problems doing this in the past. If they take turns, each one will spend a lot of time waiting for the other to finish, but if they work on their own copies and email changes back and forth things will be lost, overwritten, or duplicated. A colleague suggests using version control to manage their work. Version control is better than mailing files back and forth: Nothing that is committed to version control is ever lost, unless you work really, really hard at it. Since all old versions of files are saved, it’s always possible to go back in time to see exactly who wrote what on a particular day, or what version of a program was used to generate a particular set of results. As we have this record of who made what changes when, we know who to ask if we have questions later on, and, if needed, revert to a previous version, much like the “undo” feature in an editor. When several people collaborate in the same project, it’s possible to accidentally overlook or overwrite someone’s changes. The version control system automatically notifies users whenever there’s a conflict between one person’s work and another’s. Teams are not the only ones to benefit from version control: lone researchers can benefit immensely. Keeping a record of what was changed, when, and why is extremely useful for all researchers if they ever need to come back to the project later on (e.g., a year later, when memory has faded). Version control is the lab notebook of the digital world: it’s what professionals use to keep track of what they’ve done and to collaborate with other people. Every large software development project relies on it, and most programmers use it for their small jobs as well. And it isn’t just for software: books, papers, small data sets, and anything that changes over time or needs to be shared can and should be stored in a version control system.