Wrapping Up in Oakland

2012-03-30

We've wrapped up the workshop in Oakland for folks from NERSC, Berkeley, and Stanford. More later (when I'm home and have slept), but here's the students' feedback. Many thanks to Shreyas Cholia for organizing the workshop, to Michelle Levesque for helping to teach it, and to Elango Cheran and Jorge Aranda for helping out.

Good

Bad

software strategy
Python intro
Subversion good!
anecdotes (no, really)
speed of typing easy to follow
connected whole course to pipeline model
liked emphasis on programming hygiene
liked worked examples
incorporated pedagogy
agnostic about languages
programming philosophy
live coding (not PowerPoint)
liked learning about SVN
learned that some tools exist
humor
online resources
similar environments
engagement on first day
whole atmosphere of class
relating dev to science
having people around
learning terminology/theory
comprehensive set of tools
big picture view
four topics picked were good
free!

room was too warm
Greg didn't say SVN has branching
need more use cases from audience
too short
Michelle types too fast
first three hours slow
first three hours too fast
Python: too much basic software discussion
needed more time to talk to neighbors
mention the next step
more depth
enough rope to hang themselves
too few interactive examples
room was too small, too
more MATLAB
advanced students could come later
more examples to work on our own
engagement on second day
more instruction about setup/install
hands-on with HDF5 etc.
too fast
too diverse levels
already knew lots of this
didn't talk about Silicon Valley
wanted a before+after test
healthier snacks