Re: [Discuss] installation instructions

[Andrew Walker [EAR]]

Hi all,

I suspect the best way to do this would be to create 'special workshop'
from the template that includes all installation instructions and some
generic background information rather than information about a particular
workshop. Call it something like 'installation' in the swcarpentry
organisation and we would get a useful site
(swcarpentry.github.io/installation) and hopefully have something we can
keep in sync with the instructions we present to workshop participants.

There are a few important points that I think we should keep in mind:

* We should keep a set of installation instructions in the workshop
webpages (and thus in the template). Workshop organisers / lead
instructors need to taylor these both for content (avoid telling
participants at a R-based workshop to install python) and "level" (if you
know you have absolute beginners the python test scripts seem to be more
trouble than they are worth, but they seem to work well with more advanced
groups). 

* Any central instructions need be kept in sync with the per-workshop
instructions. Fixes like the problem with nano last summer need to
propagate everywhere and we should avoid telling participants to do two
different things depending on where they look.

* It should be possible to arrange this with a bit of careful thought and
git-foo. It would need reasonable communication between the
workshop-template maintainer and whoever looks after the installation
instructions repository and a clear idea about the direction that patches
to installation instructions should travel (they could go from the
installation instructions repository to the workshop-template or the other
way; I suspect mixing directions would result in a mess).

Ultimately this discussion probably belongs in an issue in a repository
somewhere.

Best wishes,

Andrew

‹
Dr Andrew Walker
NERC Independent Research Fellow
School of Earth and Environment
University of Leeds




On 19/02/2016, 18:14, "Discuss on behalf of Cam Macdonell"
 wrote:

>May I suggest that an admin on the SWC github site create a repo named
>"install-docs" (or something better) that we can begin to work on?
>
>Cam
>
>Quoting Karin Lagesen :
>> I have for some time wanted a "Resources" section on our website, with
>>stuff
>> that our community can use. IMO, this section would include a SWC pitch,
>> logos, other advertising material, install instructions, debug install
>> stuff, and other mostly static things that we, the community, would need
>> rapid access to.
>> 
>> Karin
>> 
>> 
>> On 18.02.2016 02:26, Bennet Fauber wrote:
>> >I think that separting the installation instructions is good idea.
>> >That might make them easier for people trying to use the published
>> >material but who are not attending a specific workshop.
>> >
>> >In the spirit of writing functions and calling them from larger
>> >scripts, wouldn't we want to write a function for each installation:
>> >bash, git, python, et al., and then refer to the ones pertinent to the
>> >workshop from the workshop site?  Then the same installation
>> >instructions could be used for an Intro Python and an Intermediate
>> >Python.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 7:15 PM, Moreau, John (UMKC-Student)
>> > wrote:
>> >>Matt et al:
>> >>
>> >>Perhaps this is the crux of the problem. We no longer have
>>installation
>> >>instructions outside of the workshop pages. More experienced
>>instructors may
>> >>know to check the workshop template on GitHub. However, for newer
>> >>instructors, potential workshop hosts, and drive-by site visitors,
>>there¹s
>> >>no clear directions.
>> >>
>> >>Thinking about the problem from the perspective of a novice learner,
>>their
>> >>first instinct will be to check the website. After coming up short,
>>some
>> >>people will become frustrated and abandon the search. Here¹s where an
>>expert
>> >>might say ³Why didn¹t you just* google for {program needed}?² Because
>>the
>> >>novice learner lacks the mental models of an expert, they may not
>>know what
>> >>search terms to use. The Shell lessons suffer from this problem more
>>than
>> >>most:
>> >>
>> >>·Nowhere on the lesson landing page
>> >>(http://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/) do we mention the term
>>³Bash²
>> >>
>> >>·The ³Introducing the Shell² page
>> >>(http://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/00-intro.html) does not
>>use the
>> >>term ³Bash² until the seventh paragraph
>> >>
>> >>·The intro page does not directly tell a novice learner that
>>the
>> >>standard Git for Windows installation includes Bash.
>> >>
>> >>·The intro page does mention that the Bash shell is the
>>default
>> >>shell on many modern UNIX implementations. A novice learner may not
>>know
>> >>that Mac OS now uses a UNIX engine and uses Bash for its command line
>> >>terminal. They also may not know how to access the 

[Discuss] Job opportunities at the University of Leeds

[Andrew Walker [EAR]]

Hi all, 

We have a couple of openings for scientific programmers in the School of Earth 
and Environment at the University of Leeds, which may be of interest to members 
of this list. More information can be found in the announcement from Tim and 
Andy, below.

Best wishes,

Andrew


 

*With Apologies for Cross Postings*
 
Dear colleagues,
 
We are seeking three enthusiastic and talented colleagues to join the InSAR 
team at Leeds. Details of the posts are below or can be found on  
http://jobs.leeds.ac.uk by searching for “InSAR”.

 
Post 1. COMET Research Fellow: Strain Mapping with Satellite Geodesy (InSAR)  
https://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=ENVEE1082 [Fixed Term - Until March 
2019]
Post 2. Scientific Programmer, InSAR Services (Processor Development)  
https://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=ENVEE1087 [Fixed Term - 12 months]
Post 3. Scientific Programmer, InSAR Services (Delivery System Development)  
https://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=ENVEE1086 [Fixed Term - 12 months]
 
Please pass this message on to anyone who you think may be interested. The 
closing date for all of these posts is 22 November.
 
Best wishes
 
Andy Hooper and Tim Wright
COMET, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK
 
 
   
___
Discuss mailing list
Discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org
http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org

Re: [Discuss] Teaching very simple XML manipulation

[Andrew Walker [EAR]]

Hi Aleksandra,

No problem. I've dug the old XPath exercises out from a dusty disk and made 
them accessible here: http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~earawa/FoX/iFaX/iFaX.3/ 
with the introductory slide deck here: 
http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~earawa/FoX/iFaX/Docs/Practical3_intro.pdf

I forgot that by this point we had talked about XML namespaces... which 
complicate things.

Best wishes,

Andrew


From: Discuss [discuss-boun...@lists.software-carpentry.org] On Behalf Of 
Aleksandra Pawlik [aleksandra.n.paw...@gmail.com]
Sent: 30 October 2014 14:17
Cc: discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org
Subject: Re: [Discuss] Teaching very simple XML manipulation

Dear All,

What can I say...You are AMAZING :-) Thanks a lot for all emails and
info. Very very useful already.
Andrew, if it doesn't take too much of your time, can you point me to
the old XPath exercises you mentioned?

Yours truly grateful,
Aleksandra

On 30 October 2014 14:13, Andrew Walker [EAR] a.wal...@leeds.ac.uk wrote:
 Hi Aleksandra,

 A good few years ago I helped to put together and run a two day course on 
 XML for Fortran programmers (best not to ask why).  Most of the hands on 
 for this was in Fortran; the first two exercises looked at how to create a 
 well-formed document the last two how to read one using DOM and SAX based 
 parsers. In between these we stuck an exercise on reading an XML document 
 using Python, mainly to show the simplicity of XPath based parsers (compared 
 with what was to come) but also to drive home the point that you can view a 
 well-formed XML document as a tree of nodes.

 I think the two important questions are: How much do you want your students 
 to learn about XML as a technology (as opposed to just being able to parse a 
 document)? Do you expect them to always deal with well-formed XML, or are 
 they likely to need to handle a wider range of XML-like documents later in 
 their course?

 If the lesson should be applicable to a wider range of documents I think 
 BeautifulSoup is probably the way to go. If the idea is to learn about the 
 details of XML I would probably start with an exercise using XPath and try to 
 focus on the subset that is supported by ElementTree (leaving the choice of 
 ElementTree and lxml as a detail for now).

 I can probably find the documentation for the old XPath exercises if they 
 will be useful.

 Cheers,

 Andrew




 --
 Dr Andrew Walker
 NERC Independent Research Fellow
 School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
 http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.walker

 From: Neil Chue Hong (SSI) 
 n.chueh...@software.ac.ukmailto:n.chueh...@software.ac.uk
 Date: Thursday, 30 October 2014 12:29
 To: Aleksandra Pawlik 
 aleksandra.n.paw...@gmail.commailto:aleksandra.n.paw...@gmail.com
 Cc: 
 discuss@lists.software-carpentry.orgmailto:discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org
  
 discuss@lists.software-carpentry.orgmailto:discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org
 Subject: Re: [Discuss] Teaching very simple XML manipulation

 Hi Aleksandra,

 what sort of manipulation are you going to ask your students to do? Is it 
 just finding elements and then doing something, or is it something more 
 complex.

 ElementTree vs lxml is the argument you'll get into for which Python XML 
 library you're going to want to use. I can't comment on this.

 Strangely, I recently did a little bit of XML parsing and used BeautifulSoup 
 (normally used for web pages) as I'm more used to it, and it does work (and 
 can use ElementTree or lxml as its basic parser).

 Neil

 On 30 October 2014 11:51, Aleksandra Pawlik 
 aleksandra.n.paw...@gmail.commailto:aleksandra.n.paw...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello!

 We are running an SWC course at Manchester as a part of a one week
 training for MSc students in Clinical Bioinformatics. We have 2.5 days
 for SWC and then the students will work on a small programming task in
 teams. The idea is that they will need to grab some XML files, parse
 them and then do some rather simple manipulation with the outputs.

 At the end of the SWC (we'll be using Python) we want to show them how
 to use a _simple_ library for XML. So before I dive into Google, I
 though I'd be lazy and ask the SWC community:
 1) Has anyone created an SWC module on XML? If yes, can you point me to it?
 2) Which Python library from XML would you recommend?
 3) Do you have any other suggestions?

 Before you jump on me saying What the heck are you doing?Software
 Carpentry doesn't teach XML. I'll just say that the goal is _not_ to
 focus on XML. We want to show them how to use Python libraries. XML is
 an example and in the case of this particular audience, it is a better
 example than NumPy and SciPy (we had lots of discussions with prof.
 Andy Brass who runs the whole course). We will deliver the standard
 SWC but the remaining 2 days they are supposed to try flying on their
 own, working in groups writing a small program using what we taught
 them (structured programming