Software Carpentry at QM

h1. Software Carpentry workshops for MAT/C4DM in QMUL

h2. Post-workshop links Assessed exercise

* [[MATFeb2013AssessedExercise|Assessed exercise]]
* [[MATFeb2013Material|Download links for workshop material]] [[MATFeb2013AssessedExercise|Details here]]

h2. Dates/Where

* 6th-7th February 2013 -- MAT lab

h2. Planned schedule

*Day 1 - 9.30am to 3pm*

* Day 1 - Morning
** *Introduction* - "material":/attachments/650/intro.pdf - 5 mins - *Chris*
** *Shell* - "material":/projects/jisc-training/repository/show/presentations/MAT%20SWC - 45 mins - *Steve*
** Short coffee break
** *Python* - "material":/documents/71 - 90 mins - *Luis*

* Day 1 - Lunch 12 - 12.30

* Day 1 - Afternoon
** *Version control* - "material":/projects/easyhg/wiki/SC2012BootcampPlan - 90 mins - *Chris*
** *Data management* - "material":/projects/jisc-training/repository/show/presentations/MAT%20SWC - conversation points in area outside lab - 60 mins - *Steve*

*Day 2 - 10am to 4pm*

* Day 2 - Morning
** *Python modules and NumPy* - material in preparation - 60 mins - *Luis*
** Coffee
** *Audio files and more NumPy* - material in preparation based on "this":/projects/audio-bootcamp-planning from Codasign - 80 mins - *Luis*

* Day 2 - Lunch - 12.30 to 1.15

* Day 2 - Afternoon
** *Testing* - [[SWC2013TDD|material]] - 90 mins - *Chris*
** Set the assessment exercise; coffee
** *What We Know* - "material":/documents/70 - 50 mins - *Chris*

* Post-workshop assessment exercise
** -Register for soundsoftware site- No, the exercise will use BitBucket as well (though we tell them about the SoundSoftware site)
** Take the exercise from the last bit of the afternoon (based on ISMIR, but not quite the same) and complete some aspect of it.
** Do this within version control on soundsoftware - add one of us as project member

h2. Actual schedule

The timings we actually ended up having.

*Day 1 - 9.30am to 3pm*

* Wait for people to arrive - 15 mins
* Short intro - Chris - 5 mins
* Shell - Steve - 60 mins
* Coffee - 15 mins
* Intro to Python - Luis - 50 mins
* Lunch - 40 mins (12.00 - 12.40)
* Version control - Chris - 80 mins
* Data - Steve - 60 mins (inc. words from Pat at the start)

*Day 2 - 10am to 4pm*

* Wait for people to arrive - 15 mins
* Python functions - Luis - 95 mins
* Coffee - 10 mins
* Audio in Python - Luis - 45 mins
* Lunch - 60 mins (12.45 - 13.45) (inc. words from Pat at the end)
* Testing - Chris - 60 mins
* Coffee - 20 mins
* Preview assessed exercise - 5 mins
* What We Know - Chris - 50 mins

h2. MAT lab computer setup

Computer lacks:

* Login for Luis (and Steve?) *fixed*
* hg and EasyMercurial *fixed*
* Matplotlib *fixed*
* iPython *fixed*
* Nose *fixed*
* pip _unsure_
* scikits.audiolab _unsure_
* Emacs with a window (as opposed to in terminal) - Aquamacs? *use textwrangler*

Computer does have:

* A text editor (TextWrangler)
* Python 2.7 system install
* NumPy

h1. Detailed plan for schedule

h2. Day 1

9am (?) to 2pm.

Day 1 is rather short because of the MAT lab being booked by someone else from 2pm.

h3. Morning
* Intro to Shell (SJW)
** Directories: pwd, cd, mkdir, ls
** Files: cp, mv, rm, cat, editors
** scripts #!/bin/bash
** access control: chmod
** Finding stuff: grep, find, locate, which
*** Regular expressions
*** Shell wildcards
** Background tasks: &, fg, bg
** Disk usage: du, df
** Tying things together > < |
** commands history, tab autocompletion
** variables
** doing stuff somewhere else: ssh
** doing serious stuff: sudo

* More possibilities:
** dot
** wget
** rsync
** mounting network (home) directories
** working on octave

* Version Control (CC) (exercise over lunch?)
** Creating repositories on SSW

h3. Afternoon
* Data Management (SJW) - Should content be integrated into discussion of shell / be before VC ?
** Rationale
** File formats - open vs. proprietary, lossy vs. lossless
*** Open formats should remain accessible in the future
*** The actual output from a lossy data format may vary depending upon how it's decoded
*** Converting files - ImageMagick convert, mplayer (to wav) + lame/flac/ogg, ffmpeg
** Backing up
** Archiving
*** "standard" compression tools good on text-like files especially if areas of content are similar
*** special compression needed for complex binary data which varies a lot e.g. FLAC
** Publishing
** Documenting
** Available facilities in C4DM (relevance for MAT ?)

h2. Day 2

10am to 4pm.

h3. Morning
* Python (LF)
** Variables
*** strings, integers, floats, lists, sets and dictionaries
*** By reference vs. by value
** Control-of-flow
** Libraries and modules - pip, easy_install
** OOP, objects and classes ?

* Python for research
** NumPy
*** Matplotlib
*** SciPy
** Python for Audio/Media: audioop, ossaudiodev, wave, aifc, sunau, PyMedia, pygame (sndarray, mixer, mixer.music), libpd (?), Python Audio Tools, scikits.audiolab, Medussa

h3. Afternoon
* Software engineering
** feedback cycles
** Unit Tests and TDD
*** nose

*Note*: We need to have some sort of evaluation so that we can give attendees a mark (some exercise to be submitted via version control a week later?)

h2. Outcomes

*Note* some of these are C4DM-specific for the C4DM version of the workshop

* Students to have their own version control repository on soundsoftware.ac.uk and to know how to use it (command-line and easyHg)
* Removal of fear of the command-line
* Knowledge of basic UNIX shell commands
* Knowledge of basic Python
* Knowledge of (some) Python libraries for media research
* Understanding of the need for data management and how to manage data
* Understand facilities available at C4DM
* Know where to go for more info
** Software Carpentry - software-carpentry.org
** Version control / project management - soundsoftware.ac.uk
** Python - python.org
** Data management - SoDaMaT
* Improved practices for software engineering, souce code management, data management