The Third Bit
In Brief
Co-founder and first Executive Director of Software Carpentry
Co-founder of It Will Never Work in Theory
and The Architecture of Open Source Applications
ACM SIGSOFT Influential Educator of the Year
Co-winner, Jolt Award, Best General Book
Member, Python Software Foundation
Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh
Author or editor of over a dozen books on programming and two for children
Projects
Software Design by Example: A Tool-Based Introduction with JavaScript is now available for purchase. All royalties from book sales will go to support the Red Door Family Shelter in Toronto; you can read the book online or give feedback on GitHub.
Software Design by Example is the book I'll recommend to every new dev… It is nice to you. It wants you to succeed… It's a bridge from "learn to program" to working programmer.
– Jessica Kerr
I am v much enjoying gvwilson's book Software Design by Example. It makes me miss teaching, it would be such a fun text to use!
– Jenn Schiffer
A Python edition of this book is currently being developed.
If you would like an early look, please get in touch.
Research Software Engineering with Python
A textbook on building research software and running research software projects (2021).
JavaScript for Data Science
An introduction to JavaScript and web programming for data scientists (2020).
Teaching Tech Together
An introduction to evidence-based teaching for people with technical backgrounds (2019, slides).
It Will Never Work in Theory
Brief reviews for working programmers of empirical results in software engineering (2011–present).
The Architecture of Open Source Applications
A collection of essays describing the architectures of fifty open source projects (2011–12).
The Carpentries
A non-profit organization teaching basic software and data skills to researchers world-wide (1998–present).
Recent Posts
| Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 2023-03-12 | Building a Book |
| 2023-03-12 | Rethinking Design Examples |
| 2023-03-11 | Full of Stars |
| 2023-03-04 | The Only Features I Need |
| 2023-03-04 | How Long Does It Take Me? |
| 2023-02-26 | Provenance Revisited |
| 2023-02-23 | It Will Never Work in Theory: April 2023 Lightning Talks |
| 2023-02-21 | Coffee and Tea |
…read them all or follow me on Mastodon
Recent Papers
| Author(s) | Year | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Wilson | 2022 | Twelve quick tips for software design |
| Smalls & Wilson | 2021 | Ten quick tips for staying safe online |
| 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 |
In the wake of posts about
Shopify's support for white nationalists
and
DataCamp's attempts to cover up sexual harassment
I have had to disable comments on this site.
Please email me if you'd like to get in touch.