add python for geosciences

[koldunovn]

This PR adds set of IPython notes "Python for Geosciences" following request from @ahmadia . Hope you will find them useful.

[ahmadia]

@koldunovn - Awesome, thank you so much for this! We are going to put this through the normal Software Carpentry review process, which will involve technical editing and suggestions for improving this. Feel free to play a direct role in shepherding your material in, or if you don't have time, I'll be happy to make any changes as needed.

@wking has some suggestions in #102 on how to use isolated feature branches if you'd like to keep your own local repository in sync with any changes we suggest.

Welcome to the Software Carpentry repository. Please contact me or info@software-carpentry.org if you have any questions about the repository or how our materials are used.

[ahmadia]

@koldunovn - Do you mind adding some information to the README about how many hours of instruction this material would take to go through if being lead by an instruction in a hands-on setting? If I had to guess, this is about 6-7 hours (a full day's) worth of material.

Thanks again!

[koldunovn]

@ahmadia I am not feeling very comfortable yet with all this git machinery, since most of the time I use it mainly to sync my code between different computers :) So if you could take care of the changes it would be nice, however I will try to participate as well. English proofreading would be very helpful indeed :)

I made it as a presentation, without hands-on. It took about 2 hours (without a break, which was kind of a mistake :) ). Of course with hands-on you would need more time and your estimate, I think, is about right. Do I have to add this information to my fork of bc repository and then commit the changes?

[ahmadia]

@koldunovn - Don't worry, we are happy to help with the Git parts, after all, it's part of the content we teach :)

As for the actual mechanics of updating the pull request, you've definitely got it right. There's a very general overview here: https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests but the most important part is that if you update your fork's branch, the PR here will be updated. Let me know if you have any questions about how to do that.

As for how to update the README, perhaps the following text:

This material has been presented in 2-hour lecture format and is also suitable for half-day and full-day hands-on presentation.

This is a fairly large PR and we also have a few other large requests in the queue, so please be patient with us in getting to the review.

[koldunovn]

@ahmadia Looks like it worked :) Nice :) Then I might update some things before you get to the editing.

[ahmadia]

Great! Just leave a comment here when you're ready for some reviewing.

[koldunovn]

You can begin with reviewing any time, there will be no significant changes, I think. It just nice to know that if I will find some small mistakes it is possible to fix them easily.

[ethanwhite]

Hi @koldunovn. Thanks for the potential contribution. This looks like really nice material you've put together. That said, there is a lot overlap with existing SWC material and, in my opinion, the Geoscience specific stuff is a bit domain specific for the core SWC repository. So I'm -1 on including this in bc.

[ahmadia]

@ethanwhite - Thanks for bringing this up early :) I'm willing to do the work on identifying and removing any redundancies if needed, since I need some geoscience-specific material for my own teaching. I think there's a broader need for domain-specific content (see @wltrimbl's biopython material, and our own assessments identifying the effectiveness of domain-specific teaching). I've opened up #111 to discuss this. I'll refrain from merging anything in until we've come to agreement there.

@koldunovn - I'm still in favor of getting this merged, but also recognize that we're a collective organization and need to reach consensus before we move forward on things. Regardless, I'm happy to help with technical and content editing of this material in this PR, so hopefully this exercise will be useful to you independent of our final decision.

[koldunovn]

@ahmadia @ethanwhite Of course guys this is your decision and I have no problems with any of the outcomes :)

Just a couple thoughts on this. I believe that you have to teach people on examples that as close to their field as possible. You usually deal with groups that have common interests and it's much easier to catch their attention if you show how their general tasks can be performed with a new tool or language. Using generic abstract examples is fine, but with field specific approach you get much more engagement much quicker. Then you can explain more complicated concepts.

In geosciences it is hard to find people who don't know at least some computer language, this is why I am not concentrating on general knowledge about programming, but try to jump as quickly as possible to applications. Later one could return to the material to explore it in more detail, but my initial idea was to give people set of tools and templates that they can use straight away on their own data.

[ethanwhite]

Just a couple thoughts on this. I believe that you have to teach people on examples that
as close to their field as possible. You usually deal with groups that have common interests
and it's much easier to catch their attention if you show how their general tasks can be
performed with a new tool or language. Using generic abstract examples is fine, but with field
specific approach you get much more engagement much quicker. Then you can explain more
complicated concepts.

I completely agree. This is something I'm a big proponent of [1, 2]. The challenge is how to do
this in a centralized and maintainable fashion where we can collectively benefit from each others'
efforts (see more specific thoughts in #111).

In geosciences it is hard to find people who don't know at least some computer language, this
is why I am not concentrating on general knowledge about programming, but try to jump as
quickly as possible to applications. Later one could return to the material to explore it in more
detail, but my initial idea was to give people set of tools and templates that they can use
straight away on their own data.

Again, I think this is a great way to go. There's no question regarding whether your material is
well thought out and useful, I think it definitely is. The question is which aspects of it might
help accomplish SWC's core mission.

And to be clear, these are just my personal opinions on the matter. Thanks for both contributing
and sparking an interesting conversation.

[1] http://programmingforbiologists.org
[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.93937

[ahmadia]

@koldunovn - There's been a group decision to hold off on adding any domain-specific material to the repository this year. I'm going to refer you to Greg's blog post about why we came this decision: http://software-carpentry.org/blog/2013/11/scope.html

I'm going to close this PR, but I'm going to keep it "active" by reviewing your material here for you (as I promised I would :).

Thanks again for your interest in Software Carpentry, for writing these lessons, and for taking the time to put this Pull Request together. Please get in touch with me privately (my email is listed on my GitHub profile), if you have any questions I might be able to answer.

[koldunovn]

@ahmadia I think it's a good decision. It's better to have a good solid and maintainable core material, and then build domain specific lectures on top of it.

Don't feel obliged to edit my material, I am totally fine if you don't and invitation to the Software Carpentry teaching classes from Greg totally worth the effort of making this PR :)) However if you still plan to do it for your classes, maybe it's a better idea to fork my repo https://github.com/koldunovn/python_for_geosciences rather than edit things here.

[ahmadia]

Sure, I'll move my edits over there. Thanks for your understanding on this
one.

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 8:33 AM, Nikolay Koldunov
notifications@github.comwrote:

@ahmadia https://github.com/ahmadia I think it's a good decision. It's
better to have a good solid and maintainable core material, and then build
domain specific lectures on top of it.

Don't feel obliged to edit my material, I am totally fine if you don't and
invitation to the Software Carpentry teaching classes from Greg totally
worth the effort of making this PR :)) However if you still plan to do it
for your classes, maybe it's a better idea to fork my repo
https://github.com/koldunovn/python_for_geosciences rather than edit
things here.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//pull/110#issuecomment-27684688
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