Dear all, thank you for all the replies. I think this is a somewhat tricky task. I still believe it would be worthwhile to include a short list in every lesson repo. This should/would be tailored to the audience of the lesson. I also think this list should be curated so that (as Darya suggested) it's content is a perfect fit for our learners ... if this is through a quick comment for every item or a 5-star rating, does not matter. But I think, it's important that we provide a quick statement how useful one title over another is. As a matter of fact, we as trainers/teachers are the ones that know the landscape of programming/scripting, our learners still need a map!
Also, I believe that the references on software-carpentry.org should stay. I consider useful overviews and some/most of them even stretch across topics (like the titles on open-source software development etc.) The global references page could then also link to the lessen references if needed. Best - Peter On Wednesday, December 09, 2015 11:31:07 AM Darya Vanichkina wrote: > Thanks for pointing that out, Peter! > > I think the way the literature is as a separate page gives a nice overview > of the links we recommend (as opposed to embedded/scattered in/throughout > the lessons). However, I do feel that page needs to be revamped, since it > doesn’t seem to be very novice-friendly. > > How clear would it be, for example, as a workshop attendee what I would > learn by perusing " Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to > Research with Python.” if what I’m told is "Covers everything from basic > shell scripting through object-oriented Python to parallel computing.” > > OK, so basic shell scripting is important, but wait there was also this > thing called the bash shell is this to do with it or am I building on it or > using the python shell?…. Object oriented?… What does that mean? Is that > good? Useful? Does this mean I’ll be able to do some fancy visualisation of > my data and set up a website (which is what I really want)? Parallel > computing? Why would I want to use parallel computing as a researcher? How > does that even work?… … Should I even read this book if I’m not in physics? > > Same with " Practical Computing for Biologists. “ - is it useful for non > biologists? How?… > > > What I am trying to say is that the list seems good in terms of content - > although not exhaustive, and I’m sure we could add more favourite resources > - but the descriptions are not very accessible to someone who doesn’t > already know at least a bit of the lingo. > > Perhaps one way to address this might be to restructure the page more as a > series of questions: > > Did you love shell scripting? > If you’d like to learn more, Unix and Linux: Visual QuickStart Guide > provides a very gentle introduction, and showcases how to do X, Y and Z > (tasks that might be tempting to a researcher) > > > Would you like to harness the power of relational databases? > Chris Fehily's SQL describes the 5% of SQL that covers 95% of real-world > needs. [And, yes, we also think that it moves a little slowly in some > places, but the examples are really clear - for example, we really like the > one where X, Y and Z are done (again, tempting real world use cases). > > etc … > > Thoughts? > > Darya _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
