Thanks for pointing that out, Peter! I think the way the literature is as a separate page gives a nice overview of the links we recommend (as opposed to embedded/scattered in/throughout the lessons). However, I do feel that page needs to be revamped, since it doesn’t seem to be very novice-friendly.
How clear would it be, for example, as a workshop attendee what I would learn by perusing " Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to Research with Python.” if what I’m told is "Covers everything from basic shell scripting through object-oriented Python to parallel computing.” OK, so basic shell scripting is important, but wait there was also this thing called the bash shell is this to do with it or am I building on it or using the python shell?…. Object oriented?… What does that mean? Is that good? Useful? Does this mean I’ll be able to do some fancy visualisation of my data and set up a website (which is what I really want)? Parallel computing? Why would I want to use parallel computing as a researcher? How does that even work?… … Should I even read this book if I’m not in physics? Same with " Practical Computing for Biologists. “ - is it useful for non biologists? How?… What I am trying to say is that the list seems good in terms of content - although not exhaustive, and I’m sure we could add more favourite resources - but the descriptions are not very accessible to someone who doesn’t already know at least a bit of the lingo. Perhaps one way to address this might be to restructure the page more as a series of questions: Did you love shell scripting? If you’d like to learn more, Unix and Linux: Visual QuickStart Guide provides a very gentle introduction, and showcases how to do X, Y and Z (tasks that might be tempting to a researcher) Would you like to harness the power of relational databases? Chris Fehily's SQL describes the 5% of SQL that covers 95% of real-world needs. [And, yes, we also think that it moves a little slowly in some places, but the examples are really clear - for example, we really like the one where X, Y and Z are done (again, tempting real world use cases). etc … Thoughts? Darya _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
