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Wrapping Up MBARI Workshop

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Steve "Jellyfish" Haddock and Greg Wilson taught a two-day workshop at MBARI this week. It seemed to go well: feedback is below.

GoodBad
  • used specific, concrete examples
  • hands on
  • good breadth
  • knowing the tools exist
  • seeing the Power of Pipes
  • seeing how to use version control for traceability
  • insistence that prior experience wasn't necessary
  • the Power of Python (!!!)
  • liked the Power of Databases
  • saw background of databases
  • now understand how much more efficient is possible
  • stories are entertaining
  • starting from scratch helpful
  • databases may not be completely useless
  • liked having things online after day 1
  • great motivational speaker
  • emphasis on commonality/interoperability
  • liked provenance
  • web site
  • linked coding/learning
  • introduced things to use *with* Python
  • content was fairly conceptual
  • clean code from the beginning
  • drawing parallels between Python and MATLAB
  • including version numbers (provenance)
  • forced to learn my Mac
  • being allowed to talk to neighbors
  • "programming is meaningless" is good
  • prepared pedagogy, not material
  • I feel like I'm a better programmer
  • great going over Unix stuff
  • some things were too fast (esp. day 2)
  • instructor wanders
  • more practice time
  • instructor types too fast
  • wanted two screens at once
  • switching between Python and shell confusing
  • more time on switching between screens
  • follow instructor or take notes but not both
  • handout please!
  • not enough hands-on practice
  • not knowing how to get data into database
  • can't keep track with multiple Python files
  • didn't explain regular expressions
  • lack of hands-on
  • more data manipulation
  • not enough time
  • shorter, more frequent breaks
  • download folder of examples
  • can't do it all in two days
  • confused with version control
  • accelerated toward the end
  • don't know how to use database in research
  • advance materials
  • show up early for setup
  • say "meaningless" first
  • sys.argv etc. not covered