Introduction to Scientific Computing course

This repository holds teaching materials for the NCAS Introduction to Scientific Computing course.

Overview

The course covers:

• Introduction to the Linux shell
• Introduction to basic Python (3.7)
• Data manipulation and visualisation in Python

Presentations

• Linux shell
• Python

Exercises and solutions

• Linux shell
• Python

Example code directory used in Python sessions
Example data directory used in Pyton sessions
Repository of completed Python exercises

Index

Overview Presentations

• Algorithmic thinking
  • Exercise
  • Worksheet
• NCAS, CMS, CEDA and JASMIN overview
• Parallel processing of large datasets
• Why good data curation is essential to doing good science

The Linux Shell

1. Text editors and terminals
2. Git and Version Control
   1. Part 1
   2. Part 2
3. Introduction
4. Pipes and Filters
5. Permissions
6. Finding things
7. Job control
8. Summary so far
9. Shell scripting
10. The secure shell
11. More tricks
    Exercises and solutions

Learning Python

1. Introduction
2. Basics
3. Boolean types
4. Scripts
5. Control flow
6. and, or and not
7. Lists
8. Slicing
9. List comprehensions
10. Tuples
11. Input and Output
12. Strings
13. Aliasing
14. Functions
15. More on functions
16. Libraries
17. Combining scripts and modules
18. Sets
19. Dictionaries
20. Errors and Exceptions
21. Logging and Debugging
22. Object Oriented Programming
23. Classes and Objects
24. Summary & where next?
    Exercises and solutions

Handling arrays

• Numpy
  Exercises and solutions

Visualisation

• Matplotlib and basemap
  Exercises and solutions

Read and Write data

1. Data formats and metadata- why?
2. Text formats
3. Some more common text formats (at CEDA)
4. Binary formats
5. Overview of NetCDF
6. The structure of "Classic" NetCDF files
7. ncgen and ncdump to create/export NetCDF and CDL
8. The CF Metadata Conventions (for NetCDF)
9. Checking CF-compliance: cf-checker
10. Reading NetCDF files with Python: netCDF4
11. Creating NetCDF files with Python
12. Reading and writing other formats
13. Viewing NetCDF: Ncview and ncBrowse
    • Exercises and solutions

Exercises and solutions

Data tools

1. Iris
2. cf-python and cf-plot

Logging data

• Logging data from serial ports
• Slides
  Exercises and solutions

Information

Want to re-use these materials?

Feel free to fork this repository on GitHub and re-use these materials however you like.

Acknowledgements

The foundations of our course are based on the superb materials provided by Software Carpentry who we are eternally grateful to.