The Third Bit
Start where you are, use what you have, help who you can.
In Brief
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Co-founder of Software Carpentry
and The Architecture of Open Source Applications
ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Educator of the Year
Co-winner, Jolt Award, Best General Book
Member, Python Software Foundation
Author or editor of over a dozen books on programming and two for children
...Publications
Recent Writing
Posts
2021-01-11: Alpha Version of Software Tools in JavaScript
2021-01-09: Pickled Carrots
2021-01-07: Steps in Order
2021-01-06: And Should I Fall Behind
2021-01-03: Concept Maps
2021-01-01: A Fresh Start
2020-12-13: Product Lifecycle Visualized
2020-12-04: Productivity and Collective Action
2020-11-20: Management Skills
2020-11-02: A Lightweight Process for Lesson Teams
...or follow me on Twitter
Papers
Lin et al (2020): Ten quick tips for making things findable
Nederbragt et al (2020): Ten quick tips for teaching with participatory live coding
Denny et al (2019): Research this! Questions that computing educators most want computing education researchers to answer
Sholler et al (2019): Ten simple rules for helping newcomers become contributors to open projects
Wilson (2019): Ten quick tips for creating an effective lesson
Brown & Wilson (2019): Ten quick tips for teaching programming
Current and Recent Projects
RStudio Instructor Training
Teaching researchers and data scientists the basics of modern evidence-based teaching practices. This workshop is derived from the training I originally created for the Carpentries.
TidyBlocks
A blocks-based tool for teaching basic data science: think "Scratch meets the tidyverse". TidyBlocks is built in JavaScript using Google's Blockly toolkit.
Research Software Engineering in Python
A textbook for a semester-long course on building research software and running research software projects. This book is due to be published in the first quarter of 2021.
Software Tools in JavaScript
An attempt to teach software design by re-implementing common software engineering tools in Node.js, it should be ready for use some time in 2021.
Teaching Tech Together
A book about teaching programming for people with technical backgrounds but no formal training as educators.
JavaScript for Data Science
An introduction to JavaScript for both client-side and server-side programming for data scientists who have never used it before.
Glosario
A multilingual glossary of terms used in data science and adjacent disciplines that is available both as structured text and as an R package.
The Carpentries
A non-profit organization dedicated to teaching basic software and data skills to researchers world-wide. I co-founded its predecessor, Software Carpentry and was its first Executive Director.
The Architecture of Open Source Applications
A collection of essays describing the architectures of 50 open source projects of various sizes, many of them written by those projects' creators.
Sensible Adventures
A sporadically-updated collection of stories and children's books I have published.