Readings and other resources in module order

This page collects together all of the “readings” associated with individual modules.

In this site, readings represent “passive” learning opportunities, as opposed to experiences, which represent “active” learning opportunities. In many courses, readings and experiences together constitute the “assignments”.

Module: Be Social

GitHub Student Developer Pack

Read about optional (free) stuff that comes with your required (free) account

Which Blogging Service is Right For Me?

Deep research into blogging options

Slides

In case you missed anything

What Tools Do Real Scientists Use?

Evidence (sample size=1) that scientists use and hire users of the tools we are learning

Setting Up Your Development Environment

A minimalist guide to setting up your development environment for this class

WTF is the Command Line?

For true noobs

Module: Clone

Why You Need Version Control

For those who need convincing

Data Sharing and Management Snafu in 3 Short Acts

Cute and scary

Clone and Run Your First Program

Your git wizard training begins

Set Up git

This guide is nice; also Google is your friend

High Performance Computing

Scroll down and see some of the pimped out hardware that is just waiting for your code

Resources for Beginning Python Programmers

Some of you are chomping at the bit

Slides

Module: Tweak

10 Reasons to Learn Vim

Number 7 will SHOCK you

Why Vim?

(Warning: obscene language and mild sexism. People are weird about text editors. If you’re offended please let me know.)

Slides

Module: Commit

Why I'm Making You Learn Git

Irrefutable proof that git is useful

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

A reading to crush your dreams

Slides

Module: Fix

Relevant Stack Overflow Question

See smart people solving the very same problem

16 Common Python Runtime Errors Beginners Find

You’ll find a few of these in the SyntaxError Experience

Module: Reach Out

How to Get and Keep a Mentor

No comments about the URL please

15 min

Module: Break

Built-in Exceptions - Python Docs

Straight from the source

Python Module of the Week - Built-in error classes

Must have been a slow week

Module: Show_Off

Customizing Bash Prompt

Instructions for customizing prompt for Ubuntu; OSX users should edit ‘.bash_profile’ instead

(or just google it)

Module: Type

Learn Python the Hard Way

For those who can take the abuse

Python for Informatics

Free book that accompanies the free Coursera class

Python Basic Tutorial at TutorialsPoint

A not bad tutorial from a sometimes questionable site

Computational Physics

Some of you have this textbook already; you might as well use it

pyimagesearch

Tutorials for computer vision stuff. (Note: your first blog post might only cover the installation and setup process; that is okay.)

Module: Hone

Vim Golf

Possibly less exciting than real golf

Learn Git Branching

Cute webapp for learning complicated stuff

Module: Refactor

Workflows of Refactoring

Slide deck by an authority on the topic. Skimmable.

Argparse Tutorial

Official tutorial from docs.python.org

PEP 8

Official style guide for Python

Find and replace all text in vi/vim

cyberciti.biz is there for you

Google Python Style Guide

Picks up where PEP 8 leaves off

Module: Measure

Python for Informatics

Free book that accompanies the free Coursera class

Module: Build

Python modules and packages

Written by your instructor; feedback welcome

30 min

Module: Test

Test Driven Development

It’s a wiki so just read the first few entries

20 min

Stack Overflow answer on unit testing

With several hundred likes

20 min

unittest - Unit Testing Framework

Python docs

5 hrs