Fork me on GitHub

National Bureau of Economic Research

Jan 8-9, 2015

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Organizer: Jean Roth, NBER

Instructors: Tim Cerino, Ivan Gonzalez

Helpers: Matthew Lamberti

General Information

Software Carpentry's mission is to help researchers, economists, statisticians, and scientists become more productive by teaching them basic lab skills for computing like program design, version control, data management, and task automation. This two-day hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools; participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

Who: The course is aimed at NBER research assistants, graduate students and other researchers.

Where: 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 2nd floor Conference Room. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

Requirements:

Contact: Please mail tjc.swc@gmail.com or jroth@nber.org for more information.


Schedule

Day 1

09:00-10:30 Automating tasks with the Unix shell
10:30-10:45 Coffee break
10:45-12:15 Introduction to Python
12:15-13:15 Lunch break
13:15-14:45 Python Lists, Dictionaries, and Functions
14:45-15:00 Coffee break
15:00-16:30 Reading files with Python
16:30 Wrap-up

Day 2

9:00-12:00 Working with Data in Python and Pandas
12:00-13:00 Lunch break
13:00-15:00 Version control with Git
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-16:30 Regular Expressions
16:30 Wrap-up

Syllabus

The Unix Shell

  • Files and directories: pwd, cd, ls, mkdir, ...
  • History and tab completion
  • Pipes and redirection
  • Looping over files
  • Creating and running shell scripts
  • Finding things: grep, find, ...
  • Reference...

Programming in Python

  • Using libraries including pandas...
  • Working with datasets
  • Reading and plotting data
  • Creating and using functions
  • Loops and conditionals: for, if, else, ...
  • Defensive programming
  • Using Python from the command line
  • Reference...

Version Control with Git

  • Creating a repository
  • Recording changes to files: add, commit, ...
  • Viewing changes: status, diff, ...
  • Ignoring files
  • Working on the web: clone, pull, push, ...
  • Resolving conflicts
  • Open licenses
  • Where to host work, and why
  • Reference...

Regular Expressions

  • Pattern-matching power tool for character strings/li>
  • Mechanics
  • Patterns
  • Grouping and extracting
  • Using from Python and the Shell
  • Reference...

Setup

To participate in a Software Carpentry workshop, you will need working copies of the software described below. Please make sure to install everything (or at least to download the installers) before the start of your workshop.

Overview

Editor

When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is optimized for writing code, with features like automatic color-coding of key words. The default text editor on Mac OS X and Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being intuitive. if you accidentally find yourself stuck in vim, try typing the escape key, followed by ':q!' (colon, lower-case 'q', exclamation mark), then hitting Return to return to the shell. Please see below for recommended Editors for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

The Bash Shell

Bash is a commonly-used shell. Using a shell gives you more power to do more tasks more quickly with your computer.

Git

Git is a state-of-the-art version control system. It lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com.

Python

Python is becoming very popular in scientific computing, and it's a great language for teaching general programming concepts due to its easy-to-read syntax. We teach with Python version 2.7, since it is still the most widely used. Installing all the scientific packages for Python individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend an all-in-one installer. Please see below for how to install Anaconda Python.

Windows

Python

  • Download and install Anaconda.
  • Use all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Make Anaconda the default Python.

Git Bash

Install Git for Windows by download and running the installer. This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.

Software Carpentry Installer

This installer requires an active internet connection

After installing Python and Git Bash:

  • Download the installer.
  • If the file opens directly in the browser select File→Save Page As to download it to your computer.
  • Double click on the file to run it.

Editor

nano is the editor installed by the Software Carpentry Installer, it is a basic editor integrated into the lesson material.

Notepad++ is a popular free code editor for Windows. Be aware that you must add its installation directory to your system path in order to launch it from the command line (or have other tools like Git launch it for you). Please ask your instructor to help you do this.

Mac OS X

Bash

The default shell in all versions of Mac OS X is bash, so no need to install anything. You access bash from the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities). You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.

Editor

We recommend Text Wrangler or Sublime Text. In a pinch, you can use nano, which should be pre-installed.

Git

For OS X 10.8 and higher, install Git for Mac by downloading and running the installer. For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.7) use the most recent available installer for your OS available here. Use the Leopard installer for 10.5 and the Snow Leopard installer for 10.6-10.7.

Python

  • Download and install Anaconda.
  • Use all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Make Anaconda the default Python.
  • Troubleshooting: If you get the following error message "ValueError unknown locale: UTF-8", see instructions on how to fix it here.

Linux

Bash

The default shell is usually bash, but if your machine is set up differently you can run it by opening a terminal and typing bash. There is no need to install anything.

Git

If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager (e.g. apt-get or yum).

Editor

Kate is one option for Linux users. In a pinch, you can use nano, which should be pre-installed.

Python

We recommend the all-in-one scientific Python installer Anaconda. (Installation requires using the shell and if you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself just download the installer and we'll help you at the boot camp.)

  1. Download the installer that matches your operating system and save it in your home folder.
  2. Open a terminal window.
  3. Type
    bash Anaconda-
    and then press tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear.
  4. Press enter. You will follow the text-only prompts. When there is a colon at the bottom of the screen press the down arrow to move down through the text. Type yes and press enter to approve the license. Press enter to approve the default location for the files. Type yes and press enter to prepend Anaconda to your PATH (this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).

All operating systems