SE4Sci

The importance of SE in scientific computing

• It's easier to write code than read code
• A goal of good software engineering is to reuse code
• This is the opposite of how we learn to code!

This course aims to fix that by providing a structured introduction to best practices and useful tools.

Some important overarching concepts

• Version control
• Testing and debugging
• Continuous integration
• Packaging and distribution
• Design principles
• Compiled code
• Performance

Notes on language and tooling

We will use Python and Python specific tools (first 2/3 of course).

But concepts are general! You can find similar tools for any language once you know the concepts.

Problem-solution ordering

Other courses have this too, but it hits us hard!

Classic example: Game design

• Make a tutorial teaching about locked doors
  • Give player a key
  • Have them open a locked door
• Make a level with a locked door
  • Player is supposed to go look for key!

But they didn't know that the tutorial key opened the tutorial door!

Problem-solution ordering (2)

• Need to collaborate -> git
• Find a failure introduced in code -> git
• Spend 1+ day hunting bug -> debugger / unit testing
• See compiler catch bug early -> static typing
• Memory leaks / segfaults -> memory safety

These are worth the tradeoff, but you might not see that yet!

New features are restrictions

Each new concept in programming restricts rather than enables.

May seem counter-intuitive at first!

We could write any program with a very small set of constructs; even very simple languages are Turing Complete.

However, the most important feature of programming is organization (also called design).

Example: goto (hypothetical)

i = 0
label start
compute(i)
i = i + 1
if i < 10: goto start

vs.

for i in range(10):
    compute(i)

Course structure

The challenges of this course:

• Often introducing solutions before problems
• Large variance in the audience in terms of skill and background
• Good coding basics rarely taught elsewhere

Introductions

I'd like to know who you are and what you are interested in! Let's do a round of introductions. Suggested topics:

• Name
• School
• Preferred programming Language(s)
• A project you are working on or want to work on