- Dates
2021-01-20, 2021-01-21, 2021-01-22, 2021-01-23, 2021-01-24
- Time
12noon to 1pm (US/Pacific time)
- Author
Mark Galassi
- Time-stamp
<2021-01-18 16:43:51 markgalassi>
[Lecture slides with transitions ]
[Lecture slides handout mode ]
[LaTeX source for the lecture slides ]
Remember: you don't have to do anything beforehand. If you follow these instructions that's fine, if you have a linux or unix computer that's also good, but most of all just show up. My lecturing will be to spawn conversations.
The TL;DR on how to connect is that we will use Jitsi for our videoconference. No accounts or registration needed, just go to:
We start at 12 noon (US/Pacific time) on Wednesday 2021-01-20, continuing on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
The first time I will be on about half an hour early in case you want to make sure that the videocon works. Since videocons are subject to Murphy's Law, it might be a good idea to show up early.
In general browser-based videocon systems (including Jitsi) tend to work better with a recent Chromium/Chrome, but should also work well with a recent Firefox.
The TL;DR on how to connect is that we will use Jitsi for our videoconference. No accounts or registration needed, just go to:
We start at 12noon (US/Pacific time) on Wednesday 2021-01-20, and run for an hour. We then continue at the same times on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
The first time I will be on about 20 minutes early in case you want to make sure that the videocon works. Since videocons are fertile ground for Murphy's Law, it might be a good idea to show up early.
In general, browser-based videocon systems (including Jitsi) tend to work better with a recent Chromium/Chrome, but should also work well with a recent Firefox.
We will be "cameras on" the entire time.
We will also have an etherpad instance open at:
https://pad.riseup.net/p/PaideiaModernSoftwareEngineering
where we can all write in scratch notes to show each other what we are thinking about.
A big part of the effectiveness of a practicing researcher is the expert use of software. Another is the ability to feel the pulse of the industry: see what trends are important, understand how your particular area of work fits into the broad picture of the industry.
We will take a romp through the history and current state of the software world, understanding what current trends might be, and how to then lead a research career making robust software choices.
We will also touch on a couple of aspects of "software citizenship", namely underrepresentation of women and economic minorities, and issues of software freedom.
The January 2021 course welcomes any Reed College Paideia students. Serious computing is a part of every academic field, so we hope to have participants from all areas, not just from physical and mathematical sciences.
You should then prepare according to the instructions below. If anything seems daunting, please don't worry: you can "just show up" and it will unfold well.
The most important thing for you to bring is your own experience and techniques that you can share, or your own questions. That will make this useful.
When we discuss digital citizenship you might consider priming yourself by watching Lorena Barba's lecture "The frustration of diversity efforts in STEM" at PyDATA, London 2019:
And if you don't have a chance to do all the prep work below, please join us anyway! When I show examples of programming and debugging you can try to do them with me, or you can just sit back and watch.
TL;DR - we should each have on our computer in order of decreasing importance (a) a shell, (b) python version 3, (c) one or two editors, (d) a version control system (mercurial or git), (e) a C compiler, (d) the GNU source-level debugger.
If you want to follow the examples we do, then you should have a Linux or UNIX (for example MacOS) operating system, or an emulation of Linux/UNIX.
On Linux the programs we use to do things are "just there", integrated into the system.
On MacOS you might want to install the homebrew packaging system at https://brew.sh/ -- homebrew allows you to use a huge collection of free/open-source tools. Some of the tools we will use do not come with MacOS but are available with brew. (And of course remember that you can also just watch me carry out examples.)
On Windows there are a few ways to get the high quality FOSS tools. The most comprehensive is probably Cygwin at https://www.cygwin.com/ but you could also look at MinGW and (on very recent Windows 10) the "Linux subsystem for Windows".
On chromebooks then you are in a weird situation: chromebooks run the linux kernel, but not all of the usual programming tools. Still, you can get a bash shell and people have ported packages. I have not experimented much, but try this link:
https://jingsi.space/post/2018/12/09/emacs-on-chrome-os/
it details how to install emacs and all other tools available with the nix packaging system.
This is where programmers spend most of their time, so we will work at understanding a few of them. The classics are emacs and vi/vim, and we will look at both of them.
Younger people have often grown up with more graphical editors, and we will spend a bit of time discussing editors such as eclipse, and understanding the difference between an "integrated development environment" (IDE) and the use of separate tools glued by mastery of the UNIX command line.
If you have not used an editor before and want a simple one that you can learn immediately you could try Geany at https://www.geany.org/
To be prepared for a panoramic tour, you could install emacs, vi, and geany on your computer.
python3 is the most important to have installed. http:/www.python.org/ has instructions for all operating systems.
A C compiler and the GNU debugger would also be good to install ahead of time. These are available with the various packaging systems mentioned above. So would git.
sudo apt install emacs vim python3 git gcc gdb geany
in cygwin's setup.exe graphical interface select emacs, vim, python3, git, gcc, gdb and install them
brew install emacs vim git geany
We will use Jitsi for our videoconference. You can use it with your browser (no need to install any specific software, and no need for an account). You can also use it on mobile devices with Android or iOS. Jitsi is free/open-source software and there should be no leak of your information. You also don't need an account on any system: just go to the URL.
We will also have an etherpad scratchpad for people to write things interactively, and probably a NextCloud instance as well.
Use a reasonable browser (chromium/chrome or firefox) and go to this URL:
Or get the Jitsi mobile app at
and hook up to the chat room "Paideia"
We will be "cameras on" the entire time.
We will also have an etherpad instance open at:
https://pad.riseup.net/p/Paideia
where we can all write in scratch notes to show each other what we are thinking about.