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Home> Blog> Summary of May 2014 Lab Meeting

Summary of May 2014 Lab Meeting

Greg Wilson
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Agenda

  • Announcements
  • Votes on pull requests
  • Votes on possible additions
  • Plans for the July 22-23 sprint (https://etherpad.mozilla.org/swc-sprint-2014 )
  • Tracking bootcamp tasks
  • Adding helpers to the 'instructors' list
  • How to engage departments?
  • SWC Administration Tooling and Processes (see note below and line 88)

Attendees

  • Greg Wilson (Mozilla, Toronto)
  • Xu Fei (New York, NY)
  • Paul Wilson (U. Wisconsin-Madison)
  • Mike Jones(Pittsburgh, PA)
  • Devasena Inupakutika (Southampton, UK)
  • Trevor King (Olympia, WA)
  • Jason Williams (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
  • Damien Irving (University of Melbourne)
  • Hamid Mokhtarzadeh (University of Minnesota, MN)
  • Dan Warren (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)
  • Ana Malagon (Yale University, CT)
  • Cliburn Chan (Duke University, NC)
  • Emily Davenport (UChicago, IL)
  • Christian Jacobs (Imperial College London, UK)
  • Matthias Bussonnier (institut curie, paris)
  • Ethan White (A car somewhere in Indiana)
  • Cam Macdonell (Edmonton, Alberta)
  • Rob Beagrie (Imperial College London)
  • John Blischak (University of Chicago)
  • Paul Ivanov (UC Berkeley)
  • Gabriel Devenyi (McMaster)
  • Jessica Ruyle (University of Oklahoma)
  • Doug Latornell (UBC, Vancouver)
  • Marian Petre (Open University, UK)
  • Francois Michonneau (University of Florida)
  • Jeramia Ory (King's College)
  • Brad Taber-Thomas (Penn State)
  • Brian Glanz (Honolulu)
  • Pauline Barmby (Western U, London Ont)
  • Tracy Teal (MSU)
  • Gavin Simpson (URegina, Canada)
  • Joshua Adelman (University of Pittsburgh)
  • Kaitlin Thaney (Mozilla Science Lab)
  • Arliss Collins (Mozilla, TO)
  • Chris Friedline (VCU, Richmond, VA)
  • Will Trimble (Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago)
  • Denis Haine (U of Montreal, QC)
  • JC Leyder (ESA, Spain)
  • Christina Koch (Vancouver)
  • April Wright (University of Texas, Austin)
  • Massimiliano Picone (Italy)
  • Raniere Silva (University of Campinas, Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil)
  • Remi Emonet (Univ Saint Etienne, France)
  • Sarah Simpkin (University of Ottawa, Canada)
  • Abigail Cabunoc (OICR)
  • Amanda Harlin (University of Oklahoma)
  • Matt Gee (University if Chicago)
  • Dmitri Novikov (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada)
  • Marcello Barisonzi (Montreal)
  • Daisie Huang (UBC, Vancouver, Canada)
  • Philipp Bayer (University of Queensland, Australia)
  • Matt Davis (Synthicity)

Announcements

July Sprint - July 22-23

Votes on Pull Requests

  • Where should "extra" lessons go:
    • In the topic directory, e.g., under novice/r ?
    • In a separate directory, e.g., under extras ?
    • Vote: put it under topic (clear majority)
    • Stephen Turner: can't make call, but seems to me extra lesson should go in topic, e.g., novice/r/extras/ggplot2--etc..., otherwise /extras could get pretty cluttered
    • Evening voting: +1+1+1+1+100+1+10+1+1 in favor of putting stuff under
    • And a related decision, where to put materials that teach Git using RStudio? {{site.github_url}}/bc/issues/492
    • Vote: put it under R (clear majority)
  • Discussion of tmux: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/249
    • Needs markup updates (ask Raniere for more)
    • vote: too advanced for us, but hang onto it until we have a story for "import lesson"
  • Using 'parameter' instead of 'argument': {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/420
    • No consensus (morning voting)
    • Voting for the evening: A is "parameter for definition, argument for value passed in", B is "only use parameter", C is "only use argument", D is "don't even try"
    • Evening voting: (!B)DDDDDDDDDDDAD
  • IPython Parallel: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/438
    • I need to do more here, but have lots of good feedback, can we vote next time?
  • Introduction to scikit-learn: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/443
    • Votes: 0, +1 +1
  • Python string formatting: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/457
    • Votes: +1 +1
  • Common Python error messages: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/461
    • Votes: +1 +1 +1 +1+1+1+1+1+1
    • Paul Wilson: I haven't looked at PR, is this kind of language-deep?
    • Greg Wilson: yes, but we can translate into R and other languages
  • Add syllabus to default home page: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/494
    • Votes: +1+1+1+1+1 +1+1
  • Text data mining in the shell: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/475
    • Votes: +1 0 (looks very similar to shell intro?)(good idea, haven't really looked at materials)(needs work)
  • Setting up SSH keys for GitHub: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/470
    • Votes:+1(amanda harlin) +1 (extras) +1 (extras)+1 +1+1+1+1
  • Port version control lesson to Mercurial: {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/439
    • Rendered version for review is at http://eos.ubc.ca/~dlatorne/swc/novice/hg/
    • Unresolved discussion re: merge conflicts, file annotation vs. GUI tools
      • Need some more opinions on this; just 2 that oppose each other at the moment; see "Default behaviour of hg merge and merge tools" thread in hg@ list
    • Votes:+1(extras) +1 +1 +1+1(concepts where it differs from git)+1+1

Votes on New Topics

  • using Excel properly
    • Morning voting: +1 +1 good for Data Carpentry too-1,0+1+1+1+1 +1+1+1+1+1 +1 0
    • Evening voting: +1+1+1(openoffice)+1+1+1+1+10
  • using Make to manage pipelines
    • Morning voting: +1+1 +1 +1 1 0 +1 +1 0 +1 0 0+1+1+1
    • Evening voting: +1+1+1+10+100+1
  • regular expressions
    • Morning voting: +1+1+1 +1+1+1+1+1 +1 +1 +1+1+1+1+1
    • Evening voting: +1+1+1+1+10
  • creating web-accessible content/data (?) (see {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/502 )
    • Morning voting: +1 +1 0 +1+1+1+1(intermediate level)+1
    • Evening voting: +1+10
  • Statistics and Pandas (see {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/432 and {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/266 )
    • Morning voting: we need someone to take the lead
      • keen to contribute but a little too busy to lead atm (rob beagrie)
      • ditto to what Rob said (Pauline)
      • Chris Friedline can help too
      • Happy to help with aligning Pandas material with the R lessons (Gavin Simpson)
      • Willing to take lead on Excel --> Pandas (April Wright + Christina Koch and Pauline Barmby?)
    • Evening voting:
      • Happy to contribute (Cliburn) - e.g. can write lesson on split-apply-combine
  • Geospatial data (see {{site.github_url}}/bc/pull/387 )
    • I'd be happy to do a very basic lesson on handling GIS data in R (Dan Warren)
    • Matt Davis can help with Python map stuff.

Tracking Bootcamp Tasks

  • See also Administration Tooling and Process below
  • Checklists are useful, but not actionable
  • Conclusion: we'll use a Google Doc spreadsheet per bootcamp for the next couple of months and see how that goes
    • Easy to set up
    • Non-technical university admins and others can drive it
  • Other options:
    • Automatically populate each bootcamp repo with a bunch of tickets?
      • Rob Beagrie: is it easy to populate a new repo with a whole bunch of issues?
      • Morning voting: +1 +1+1+1 -1 if university admins have to use it-1, same, -1 for admins
    • Github markdown supports to-do lists (see https://github.com/blog/1375-task-lists-in-gfm-issues-pulls-comments) - could we put a default to-do list in the main bc repo?
      • +1+1 checklist in issue -1 if university admins have to use it1, same
      • Updates in comments don't give watches notification by email (Raniere already request this feature)
        • If you put the list in the main repo it needs a new commit to check things off (which would presumably send an email)

Adding Helpers to the Instructors List

  • The 'instructors' mailing list currently includes exactly and only certified instructors
  • We don't have any systematic way to track would-be helpers
  • Proposal: add them to the 'instructors' list+1+1+1+1

SWC Administration Tooling and Processes

  • See also Tracking Bootcamp Tasks above
  • Neil Chue Hong: I'd like to raise the issue that we should revisit the issue of improving and streamlining our tooling and processes for administrating Software Carpentry across the world [unfortunately I can't join the call, but I hope that Aleksandra can]
  • As Software Carpentry grows, we will need to get more people contributing to the administrative effort to support the growth +1
  • The current administration process requires the use of five separate pieces of infrastructure and some parts are not easy for people without a software development background+1
  • It also doesn't necessarily scale well (*empirical evidence required*) <- trust me, this is an understatement...+1
  • Whilst we have very good guides for hosts, instructors and helpers, we don't yet for administrators
  • Proposal:
    • we get the current SWC administrators: Amy, Arliss, Aleksandra, Giacomo, others? to note the current benefits and drawbacks of the process for administrating SWC as stands
    • we set up a small group to look at how we might improve the administration infrastructure
    • we set up a small group to develop a better guide for administrators (with added flowcharts!)
  • We currently have a Mozilla colleague pulling together a prototype that should help with instructor matching, and are looking to revamp some of the pre and post bootcamp emails, followups, and discuss how to roll out comprehensively (possibly pre-set for instructors to fine tune and send through the eventbrites, for example).
    • Here's the pre-bootcamp email that we'd like to have sent with the install instructions for all events
    • Would welcome comments and thoughts. Will be working on post-event mailings, as well. (Feel free to ping me directly at kaitlin@mozillafoundation.org)
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Last edited: 24 May, 2014
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