Teaching materials for scientists

[Dave S]

On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Greg Ward <greg at gerg.ca> wrote:

> Hi all --
>
> I seem to have volunteered to teach a bunch of physics grad students
> and postdocs the basics of version control with Mercurial. Do you know
> about any teaching materials I can "borrow" to get started? I suspect
> the audience differs from programmers in several ways:
>
>   * might never even heard of version control, never mind used it
>
>   * doesn't really care about the craft of writing maintainable
>     software -- the hook is more likely to be "get back the code that
>     worked last week, collaborate easily with your buddy/supervisor,
>     have an offsite backup"
>
>   * more likely to put giant binary data files into version control
>     rather than giant binary dependencies or build outputs...
>     it's still wrong, but differently wrong ;-)
>
>   * might be tempted to put small textual analysis results under
>     version control, which I strongly suspect is wrong
>
> BTW, any tips/ideas/insights into teaching Mercurial to scientists
> would be welcome.
>
> Thanks!
>
>



There's a nice book available (free) in pdf/epub format at
< http://www.ericsink.com/vcbe/>

I wouldn't use it as the primary text for non-SW geeks, but it has some
good examples and covers Mercurial, Git, and the system Erik sells, and I
think it's pretty even-handed in treating the 3 tools.  There is also some
comparison with SVN.  The hardcopy isn't currently free, but it is
available from Amazon.

I've used source control for big projects and personal stuff; taking a Java
course last year, I kept Hg and a homework repository on by thumb driveand
still cruise the log.  I also tend to put memo drafts under source control,
which was pretty straight-forward when I was using rcs on troff input.
 Word and Open/Libre Office aren't quite as satisfactory since they save in
a binary format (compressed, IIRC), but my resume is short enough that
having a binary in Mercurial isn't a big deal.  I have yet to try the tools
that make docs behave better, but there is at least one Hg extension for
that purpose.

I can see putting the binary data sets under version control to have a
consistent workflow.  If they are the output of instruments, then even good
binary diff tools won't be able to do much, but the work flow is consistent
(and the largefiles extension may help ease the burden).  Repository tools
are probably more applicable, but that's a second set of seminars.

Good luck, and maybe you can later give us a summary of how it went ...
we'll be looking forward to your survival.

/dps








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