We are pleased to announce the Research Software Network, and Research Software Engineering activities for the Summer term, 2023.

On top of our usual courses, We are also able to offer a specialist workshop, "Speed up python with Numpy", and a 2-day Research Software Writing Retreat based at the Lancaster suite in the Castle. Please find a summary of the events below, including links to more information on each one.

RSN - Workshops

Speeding up calculations using NumPy

Have you ever had to leave your laptop in front of a fan while your Python code churns away at a problem? Are you not sure how to make it run faster but everyone else seems to be able to do it? Do you just run into words like “profiler” on StackExchange? This tutorial will look at some simple computational problems and how to speed them up. I’ll focus on using the NumPy library which is a very fast array and mathematical library for Python. By breaking our problem into simple operations we can “vectorise” it and NumPy can do the calculations 10s of times faster than bare Python code. In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to vectorise a number of computational problems.

To find out more and sign up for the course, click this link

Research Software Writing Retreat

Ever wanted some dedicated time to write code? Then come and join us for a research software writing retreat at Lancaster Castle.

What is the focus of this retreat?

Research software is often written as a by-product of research, and not given the emphasis or time it needs to be an impactful output in its own right. Indeed, creating such outputs may be difficult for researchers, many of whom are self-taught programmers and do not have the skills or support needed to create high-quality sustainable research software.

This workshop aims to solve both of these problems by providing researchers with a distraction-free space with dedicated time to focus on software and programming skills, with an on-hand RSE (Research Software Engineer) to provide support and help throughout the session.

This retreat is being organised by the Research Software Engineering Group, with thanks to generous funding from the Data Science Institute (DSI) we are able to offer a 2-day Research Software Writing Retreat. This will be based at the Lancaster Suite in the Castle, refreshments and Lunch will be provided on the 2 days. 5/07/23 and 6/07/23 - both days will start with refreshments, 9.30 - 10.00, and will wrap up at 16:30.

To find out more and sign up for the course, click this link

RSN - Teaching

Introduction to Version Control, Git, and the Command Line

This course will introduce you to version control and Git. As Git is a command line program, it will also introduce you to the basics of using and navigating the command line.

Version control is the process of tracking and managing changes made to code. There are many tools for this, but the most popular is Git. We will use Git to introduce you to the basics of version control and then show you how to use several of Git's features.

The course will start with an introduction to the command line including:

• Navigating files and directories
• Creating, copying, deleting and editing files
• Joining commands together to make them more powerful

and then move on to Git, specifically, this course will cover:

• Creating a repository, the place where our code s history is stored
• Adding files to the repository
• Making changes to our code and ensuring that they are tracked
• Exploring the history of our code and "gong back in time"
• Using Git to share your code with others.
• Collaborating with others and merging their changes into your code.

To find out more and sign up for the course, click this link

Plotting and Programming in Python (2 days)

This course will introduce you to the Python programming language and programming by guiding you through reading data in from a file and plotting it.

This course is split over 2 days (8th June and 22nd of June)

This is a two-part course, the first part will cover:

• Variables and assigning values to them
• Data types
• Functions and built-in help
• How to use libraries/packages
• Reading in data
• DataFrams and manipulating your data
• Plotting

The Second day will cover:

• How to make a program do many things. (for and while loops.
• How do make the code do different things depending upon the data by using conditionals (if statements)
• How to process many data sets with a single command
• Re-using code, how to write functions
• How to make your code more readable.

To find out more and sign up for the course, click this link