Learning Julia - a programming language for scientific computing
UCL
Nov 8, 2024
10:00 - 17:00
Instructors:
David Pérez-Suárez, Mosè Giordano
Helpers:
Saransh Chopra, Matt Graham
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General Information
Software Carpentry
aims to help researchers get their work done
in less time and with less pain
by teaching them basic research computing skills.
This hands-on workshop focuses on programming with Julia.
Participants will be encouraged to help one another
and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
This is a pilot workshop, testing out a lesson that is still under development. The lesson authors would appreciate any feedback you can give them about the lesson content and suggestions for how it could be further improved.
Who:
The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers.
You need to understand the concepts of files and directories as well as arrays and indices.
It is beneficial to have some programming experience in another language.
Requirements:
Participants must bring a laptop with a
Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on.
They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).
Accessibility:
We are committed to making this workshop
accessible to everybody.
We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all.
We do not require participants to provide documentation of disabilities or disclose any unnecessary personal information.
However, we do want to help create an inclusive, accessible experience for all participants.
We encourage you to share any information that would be helpful to make your Carpentries experience accessible.
To request an accommodation for this workshop, please email us.
Glosario is a multilingual glossary
for computing and data science terms. The glossary helps
learners attend workshops and use our lessons to make sense of computational and programming jargon written in English by offering it
in their native language. Translating data science terms also provides a teaching tool for Carpentries Instructors to reduce barriers
for their learners.
Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and
large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the
organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for
you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please
get in touch (using contact details below) and we will
attempt to provide them.
Roles:
To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what),
refer to our Workshop FAQ.
Who can attend?:
This workshop is only open to members of UCL.
Code of Conduct
Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.
Surveys
Please be sure to complete this survey before the workshop.
The lesson taught in this workshop is being piloted and a precise schedule is yet to be established. The workshop will include regular breaks. Please contact the workshop organisers if you would like more information about the planned schedule.
Setup
To participate in a
workshop,
you will need access to software as described below.
In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.
Click on "Next" four times (two times if you've previously
installed Git). You don't need to change anything
in the Information, location, components, and start menu screens.
From the dropdown menu, "Choosing the default editor used by Git", select "Use the Nano editor by default" (NOTE: you will need to scroll up to find it) and click on "Next".
On the page that says "Adjusting the name of the initial branch in new repositories", ensure that
"Let Git decide" is selected. This will ensure the highest level of compatibility for our lessons.
Ensure that "Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software" is selected and
click on "Next". (If you don't do this Git Bash will not work properly, requiring you to
remove the Git Bash installation, re-run the installer and to select the "Git from the
command line and also from 3rd-party software" option.)
Select "Use bundled OpenSSH".
Ensure that "Use the native Windows Secure Channel Library" is selected and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings" is selected and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Use Windows' default console window" is selected and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Default (fast-forward or merge) is selected and click "Next"
Ensure that "Git Credential Manager" is selected and click on "Next".
Ensure that "Enable file system caching" is selected and click on "Next".
Click on "Install".
Click on "Finish" or "Next".
If your "HOME" environment variable is not set (or you don't know what this is):
Open command prompt (Open Start Menu then type cmd and press Enter)
Type the following line into the command prompt window exactly as shown:
setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"
Press Enter, you should see SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.
Quit command prompt by typing exit then pressing Enter
This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.
Video Tutorial
The default shell in Mac OS X Ventura and newer versions is Zsh, but
Bash is available in all versions, so no need to install anything.
You access Bash from the Terminal (found in
/Applications/Utilities).
See the Git installation video tutorial
for an example on how to open the Terminal.
You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.
To see if your default shell is Bash type echo $SHELL
in Terminal and press the Return key. If the message
printed does not end with '/bash' then your default is something
else, you can change your current shell to Bash by typing
bash and then pressing Return. To check
your current shell type echo $0 and press Return.
To change your default shell to Bash type chsh -s /bin/bash and
press the Return key, then reboot for the change to take effect. To
change your default back to Zsh, type chsh -s /bin/zsh, press the
Return key and reboot. To check available shells, type
cat /etc/shells.
Video Tutorial
The default shell is usually Bash and there is usually no need to
install anything.
To see if your default shell is Bash type echo $SHELL
in Terminal and press the Return key. If the message
printed does not end with '/bash' then your default is something
else, you can change your current shell to Bash by typing
bash and then pressing Return. To check
your current shell type echo $0 and press Return.
To change your default shell to Bash type chsh -s /bin/bash and
press the Return key, then reboot for the change to take effect. To
change your default back to Zsh, type chsh -s /bin/zsh, press the
Return key and reboot. To check available shells, type
cat /etc/shells.
Git
Git is a version control system that lets you track who made changes
to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public
version of your code
on github.com. You will need a
supported
web browser.
You will need an account at github.com
for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage
you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already.
Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For
example, you may want to review these
instructions
for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.
Please open the Terminal app, type git --version and press
Enter/Return. If it's not installed already,
follow the instructions to Install the "command line
developer tools". Do not click "Get Xcode", because that will
take too long and is not necessary for our Git lesson.
After installing these tools, there won't be anything in your /Applications
folder, as they and Git are command line programs.
For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the
most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard"
available here.
(Note: this project is no longer maintained.)
Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to
right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click
Open in the pop-up dialog. You can watch
a video tutorial about this case.
Video Tutorial
If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to
install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run
sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run
sudo dnf install git.
Text Editor
When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is
optimized for writing code, with features like automatic
color-coding of key words. The default text editor on macOS and
Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being
intuitive. If you accidentally find yourself stuck in it, hit
the Esc key, followed by :+Q+!
(colon, lower-case 'q', exclamation mark), then hitting Return to
return to the shell.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop.
It is installed along with Git.
However, we will be also using VS Code on the second half of the workshop. Download it from the website and follow the instructions.
Inside VSCode, go to the Extensions view by clicking View on the top menu bar and then selecting Extensions. In the Extensions view, search for the term “julia” in the Marketplace search box, then select the Julia extension (julialang.language-julia) and select the Install button. This will add Julia to your VSCodium and automatically link the text editor to your copy of Julia you installed earlier.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop.
See the Git installation video tutorial
for an example on how to open nano.
It should be pre-installed.
However, we will be also using VS Code on the second half of the workshop. Download it from the website and follow the instructions for your particular system.
Inside VSCode, go to the Extensions view by clicking View on the top menu bar and then selecting Extensions. In the Extensions view, search for the term “julia” in the Marketplace search box, then select the Julia extension (julialang.language-julia) and select the Install button. This will add Julia to your VSCodium and automatically link the text editor to your copy of Julia you installed earlier.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop.
It should be pre-installed.
However, we will be also using VS Code on the second half of the workshop. Download it from the website and follow the instructions for your particular system.
Inside VSCode, go to the Extensions view by clicking View on the top menu bar and then selecting Extensions. In the Extensions view, search for the term “julia” in the Marketplace search box, then select the Julia extension (julialang.language-julia) and select the Install button. This will add Julia to your VSCodium and automatically link the text editor to your copy of Julia you installed earlier.
Video Tutorial
Julia
Julia is a popular language for
efficient research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as
well.
Download the current stable release from the Julia download page and unpack the folder to any location that is in your PATH or link the binary in the bin folder to such a location.