Software Carpentry workshops in April and May

We are helping the Software Carpentry project to run two workshops this year in the UK, one at the end of April at UCL in London, and the other in May in Newcastle. These are highly recommended for researchers interested in improving their software skills.

Software development is now a fundamental part of the day-to-day activities of many researchers. Yet often PhD students and early career researchers have to learn for themselves how to build, validate, maintain, and share complex programs. This can lead to big problems later, when others try to build on their research. To address this, Software Carpentry aims to teach scientists how to build the software they need for their research in an efficient, systematic way, and so maximise the impact of their research.

We are running two-day Software Carpentry workshops at two UK universities in April and May, followed by 4-8 weeks of self-paced online learning. The workshops will take place at

  • University College London: Monday-Tuesday 30 April - 1 May;
  • Newcastle University: Monday-Tuesday 14 - 15 May.

and will cover topics including

  • using the shell to do more in less time
  • using version control to manage and share information
  • basic Python programming
  • how (and how much) to test programs
  • working with relational databases

The online follow-up goes into these topics in more detail, and also touches on program design and construction, matrix programming, using spreadsheets in a disciplined way, data management, and software development lifecycles.

For more information and to register, visit the web page for the relevant event, or e-mail the organisers: