Introduction to Shell, Python and Version Control: Schedule

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Room 1007, Building 67 (Nightingale Building) and Room 3077, Building 32 (EEE Building),Highfield Campus

The following agenda outlines what will be taught on the course. Additional notes on the teaching materials will be made available shortly after the course.

The software prerequisites for the lessons can be found here. The course training materials (which you can revisit and follow at your leisure) are linked to from the topics below.

Day 1: Thu April 12th


09:00 - 09:30 Arrival and Setup
09:30 - 10:00 Welcome and Introduction to Software Carpentry [PPTX] [PDF]
10:00 - 11:00 Automating tasks with the Bash shell
The Unix shell is a power tool that allows you to do complex things with just few keystrokes by helping you in combining existing programs in new ways and automate repetitive tasks. This session guides you through the basics of file system and the shell and will start you on the path towards using powerful tools and computing resources. The following topics will be covered:

  • Introducing the shell
  • Files and Directories
  • Creating things
  • Pipes and Filters
  • Loops
  • Shell Scripts
  • Finding Things
11:00 - 11:30 Break
11:30 - 12:30 Shell: continued
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:30 Python basics: Building Programs with Python
In this session, you'll learn good programming practices with an introduction to the fundamentals of Python. The following topics will be covered:

  • Basics - e.g. Starting Python, using variables
  • Working with arrays and lists
  • Basic program control - loops and conditionals
  • Creating and using functions
14:30 - 15:00 Break
15:00 - 16:00 Python Basics: continued
16:00 - 16:30 Wrap-up of Day 1

Day 2: Fri April 13th

10:00 - 11:00 Python basics: Building Programs with Python Contd.

  • Using libraries
  • Using Python from the command line
  • Reading and plotting data
11:00 - 11:30 Break
11:30 - 12:30 Python Basics: continued
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:30 Version control with Git
This session will teach you how to track and manage changes within your code, how to collaborate with other developers through a shared code repository, and generally improve the reproducibility of your research. The following topics will be covered:

  • Creating and cloning repositories
  • Committing changes to files: add, commit, ...
  • Viewing changes: status, diff, ...
  • Working with remote repositories, e.g. through GitHub: clone, pull, push, ...
  • Resolving conflicts
14:30 - 15:00 Break
15:00 - 16:00 Version control with Git continued
16:00 - 16:30 Wrap-up and Feedback