Helpers:
Stefania Marcotti, Walter Muruez Gutierrez, Neil Jakeman, Alessia Visconti, Natasha Romanova, Fiona Wardle
General Information
Software Carpentry
aims to help researchers get their work done
in less time and with less pain
by teaching them basic research computing skills.
This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools,
including program design, version control, data management,
and task automation.
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 postgraduates and staff in the Faculties of Arts & Humanities and Social Science & Public Policy at KCL.
You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools
that will be presented at the workshop.
Where:
King's College London, Strand Campus, Bush House South East Wing, Room BH(SE) 1.01 (Jan. 9) and BH(SE) 6.04 (Jan. 10), 300, Strand, London WC2R 1AE.
Get directions with
OpenStreetMap
or
Google Maps.
Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a
Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).
Code of Conduct: Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.
Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop
accessible to everybody.
The workshop organizers have checked that:
The room is wheelchair / scooter accessible.
Accessible restrooms are available.
Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and
large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the
organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for
you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please
get in touch (using contact details below) and we will
attempt to provide them.
To participate in a
Software Carpentry
workshop,
you will need access to the software described below.
In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.
Click on "Next" four times (two times if you've previously
installed Git). You don't need to change anything
in the Information, location, components, and start menu screens.
From the dropdown menu select "Use the nano editor by default" and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software" is selected and
click on "Next". (If you don't do this Git Bash will not work properly, requiring you to
remove the Git Bash installation, re-run the installer and to select the "Git from the
command line and also from 3rd-party software" option.)
Ensure that "Use the native Windows Secure Channel library" is selected and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings" is selected and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Use Windows' default console window" is selected and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Enable file system caching" and "Enable Git Credential Manager" are selected
and click on "Next".
Click on "Install".
Click on "Finish".
If your "HOME" environment variable is not set (or you don't know what this is):
Open command prompt (Open Start Menu then type cmd and press [Enter])
Type the following line into the command prompt window exactly as shown:
setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"
Press [Enter], you should see SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.
Quit command prompt by typing exit then pressing [Enter]
This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.
The default shell in all versions of macOS is Bash, so no
need to install anything. You access Bash from the Terminal
(found in
/Applications/Utilities).
See the Git installation video tutorial
for an example on how to open the Terminal.
You may want to keep
Terminal in your dock for this workshop.
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
Git is a version control system that 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. You will need a
supported
web browser.
You will need an account at github.com
for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage
you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already.
Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For
example, you may want to review these
instructions
for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.
For OS X 10.9 and higher, install Git for Mac
by downloading and running the most recent "mavericks" installer from
this list.
Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to
right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click
Open on the pop up window.
After installing Git, there will not be anything in your /Applications folder,
as Git is a command line program.
For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the
most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard"
available here.
If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to
install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run
sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run
sudo dnf install git.
Text 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 macOS and
Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being
intuitive. If you accidentally find yourself stuck in it, hit
the Esc key, followed by :+Q+!
(colon, lower-case 'q', exclamation mark), then hitting Return to
return to the shell.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop.
It is installed along with Git.
Others editors that you can use are
Notepad++ or
Sublime Text.
Be aware that you must
add its installation directory to your system path.
Please ask your instructor to help you do this.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop.
See the Git installation video tutorial
for an example on how to open nano.
It should be pre-installed.
Python is a popular language for
research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as
well. Installing all of its research packages individually can be
a bit difficult, so we recommend
Anaconda,
an all-in-one installer.
Regardless of how you choose to install it,
please make sure you install Python version 3.x
(e.g., 3.6 is fine).
We will teach Python using the Jupyter notebook,
a programming environment that runs in a web browser. For this to work you will need a reasonably
up-to-date browser. The current versions of the Chrome, Safari and
Firefox browsers are all
supported
(some older browsers, including Internet Explorer version 9
and below, are not).
Download the Python 3 installer for Linux.
(The installation requires using the shell. If you aren't
comfortable doing the installation yourself
stop here and request help at the workshop.)
Open a terminal window.
Type
bash Anaconda3-
and then press
Tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should
appear. If it does not, navigate to the folder where you
downloaded the file, for example with:
cd Downloads
Then, try again.
Press Return. You will follow the text-only prompts. To move through
the text, press Spacebar. 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).
Close the terminal window.
OpenRefine (formerly Google Refine)
For this lesson you will need OpenRefine (formerly Google Refine) and a
web browser.
Note: this is a Java program that runs on your machine (not in the cloud). It runs inside your browser, but no web connection is needed.
If you have Internet Explorer (or Edge) set as your default web browser, check that you have Firefox or Chrome installed and set either of them as your
default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser, but will not run correctly in Internet Explorer.
Learn how to set your browser as default by clicking on this link for Google Chrome and this link for Firefox.
Select the most recent version of OpenRefine (do not select beta versions or the release candidates). The version that you should download will be at the top of the page and named OpenRefine 3.1 for example.
Unzip the downloaded file into a directory by right-clicking and selecting “Extract…”. Name that directory something like OpenRefine.
Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
Launch OpenRefine by clicking on openrefine.exe (this will launch a command prompt window first; ignore that, and wait for OpenRefine to launch in the web browser, which is where you will interact with the program).
If you are using a different browser, or OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to launch the program.
Check that you have Firefox or Chrome browsers installed and set as your
default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It will not run correctly in Internet Explorer.
Select the most recent version of OpenRefine (do not select beta versions or the release candidates). The version that you should download will be at the top of the page and named OpenRefine 3.1 for example.
Unzip the downloaded file into a directory by double-clicking it. Name
that directory something like OpenRefine.
Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
Launch OpenRefine.
Drag icon into Applications folder, and Ctrl-click/Open… it.
If you are using a different browser, or OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to launch the program.
Check that you have Firefox or Chrome browsers installed and set as your
default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It will not run correctly in Internet Explorer.
Select the most recent version of OpenRefine (do not select beta versions or the release candidates). The version that you should download will be at the top of the page and named OpenRefine 3.1 for example.
Unzip the downloaded file into a directory by double-clicking it. Name
that directory something like OpenRefine.
Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
Launch OpenRefine.
Type ./refine into the terminal within the OpenRefine directory.
If you are using a different browser, or OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to launch the program.