I like the idea of keeping the lessons closer together as asked by Raniere, and in fact I think software carpentry workshops is aimed to teach good practices than data and statistically analysis (even though it may be what drives the people to join the workshop). Last week we did our first workshop with R - after many doing with Python. I didn't feel they were there because the data analysis but just because that was the tool used in their departments/groups. In the feedback there was nobody asking that missed the statistically analysis.
I do agree with Luke that the material is already quite long for the time we have, but if I'm instructing a lesson and see that some bits are known then I can move forward to the new concepts. And in the case that we don't get to certain lessons I always point to them to the material, so they can follow up. If thestthat offers similar tools for defensive programming, then I would suggest we use them in such lessons and then is something the students have learnt for whenever they want to write their unit-tests. I would be up for helping with it, not that I'm an expert on R though. Raniere? Marianne? anyone who wants to lead it? David On 30 September 2016 at 20:32, Marianne Corvellec < [email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > > My approach is quite opposite to Luke's. > > I mostly do exploratory "data analysis at an individual > researcher/team level" precisely. I use knitr/R Markdown dynamic > reports (think Jupyter notebooks, for all the Pythonistas out there). > > At this (exploratory) stage, I don't do testing per se. But I *need* > to have some sanity checks along the way! So I have a few > `expect_true()`, `expect_that()`, etc. (from the `testthat` package) > here and there. It's not testing, it doesn't really cover much, but I > need to be a little defensive so that I can trust what's being > computed... > > I know that `testthat` is intended for unit testing but, you know, I > live in the Hadleyverse. :) > > Cheers, > Marianne > > On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 1:50 PM, Luke Johnston <[email protected]> wrote: > > I agree with Naupaka that it is a bit advanced. However, the package > > `testthat` is not for defensive programming per se, but for unit tests. > For > > defensive programming specifically there is the `assertive` and `assertr` > > packages. However, unlike Python, the facilities for defensive > programming > > are not as well developed in R and are a bit unwieldy. Considering > > programming is not often done in R for a larger user base but rather for > > data analysis at a individual researcher/team level, I don't think it is > > worthwhile to add too much/anything to the defensive programming for R. > The > > lessons are packed enough as it is. > > > > In addition to that, most people coming to the R workshops are looking to > > learn about data and statistical analysis. Defensive programming is > > something they would likely never use. I've used R for several years and > > develop a few packages and even I very rarely use these defensive > > facilities. > > > > Just my two cents. > > > > Luke > > > > > > On 2016-09-30 12:52 PM, Naupaka Zimmerman wrote: > > > > Hi Raniere - > > > > I think it isn't a part of the materials because it's a bit advanced for > the > > usual audience level. But that's not to say it wouldn't be nice to have. > I > > imagine such a lesson could intro the base assertion functions like > > stopifnot() and also Hadley's testthat package. PRs welcome! > > > > Best, > > Naupaka > > > > On 30 Sep 2016, at 8:19, Raniere Silva wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > on our Programming with Python, > > http://swcarpentry.github.io/python-novice-inflammation/08-defensive/, > > we have a "Defensive Programming" section. > > This section is missing on the R lesson. > > Any experience R instructor can let me know why? > > And if you have your "translation" of that lesson in R > > could you send me a copy of it? > > Cheers, > > Raniere > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > [email protected] > > > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss >
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