A group that has an interest in scientific computing, programming, collaborating, and learning tools that can help one become more productive and efficient.

• Teach, guide, and build a group that has interest in learning basic scientific computing skills, learning how to program, and learning tools and techniques to help become more productive, efficient, and computationally sound.
• Collaborate and share knowledge.
• Help improve and expand computing skills.
• Learn and follow the best practices in scientific computing.

• Unix Shell - for learning basic commands/language to communicate with a computer; basis for learning how to program.
• Version Control with Git - for learning how to track, reproduce, and share work efficiently.
• Programming with Python - for learning how to program and to write programs in a modular and testable way.
• Scientific libraries including:
  • numpy - fundamental package for scientific computing; includes arrays and matrices
  • matplotlib - 2-D plotting library that produces publication quality figures in various formats
  • scipy - package for scientific computing that includes routines for statistics, numerical differentiation, numerical integration, optimization, etc.
• And much more ... please see Recently Covered Topics and Upcoming Topics

Time: Each week on Wednesday's and Friday's from 12:00 PM EST - 1:00 PM EST.

Outline/Structure:

1. Overview of previous covered/discussed material
2. Discuss objective(s) for the meeting.
3. Give introduction to topic
4. Watch a related brief video that covers the topic. (if applicable)
5. Work through hands-on examples together.
6. Discuss topic covered and answer any outstanding questions.

How to attend: Contact Jeremiah Lant to get added to the email list and receive invites to the meetings. Anyone is welcome.

Recordings: Each meeting (live and unrehearsed) is recorded and made available at a time of your convenience at the USGS FTP site:

ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/ky/louisville/jglant/scientific-computing-group/recordings/

Material:

data/                   --->            data files used in meetings
meetings/               --->            directories for each meeting  
    yyyy-mm-dd_topic/   --->            meeting summaries (yyyy-mm-dd_topic.md) and code directory (if applicable)
presentations/          --->            meeting presentations (yyyy-mm-dd_topic.pdf)
resources/               
    git/                --->            useful Git related documents
    python/             --->            useful Python related documents, code snippets, scripts
    resources.md        --->            useful resources for Git, Python, Scientific Computing

Software Recommendations:

• Python 2.7.6
• Latest version of Git
• A text editor of your choice such as:
  • Notepad++
  • TextWrangler
  • Sublime Text
  • Also see 5 best text editors

• Testing - exceptions, unit testing
• numpy, matplotlib, scipy libraries
• Oreilly - Intermediate Python
• GitHub - Guides
• Software Carpentry - Version 5 material
• Object-oriented programming

Please see resources

Jeremiah Lant
Hydrologist
U.S. Geological Survey
Kentucky Water Science Center
Louisville, Kentucky 40299
(502) 493-1949
jlant@usgs.gov