Welcome and Q&A

Overview

Teaching: 30 min
Exercises: 15 min

Questions

• How important to modern research is software?

• How is software typically written in academia?

• Why should we take the effort to write software well?

• What are we going to learn today?

• What will happen after this course?

Objectives

• Explain why software is important to research and has value.

• Understand what software contains, in addition to programming instructions.

• Explain the differences between programming and engineering.

• Describe the benefits of testing and version control.

See topic slides.

Key Points

• Software is an indispensable tool of modern research.

• The use and development of software in research is increasing.

• The software you write is important.

• Software contains far more value than just a sequence of instructions.

• Use of version control enables programming to become science.

• Writing software using established practices will save you time in the long run.

• Always assume others will use and develop software you write (including a future version of yourself).

• Be clear on software requirements but assume they they will change.

• Funders are increasingly expecting software outputs to be sustainable and reusable.