Software Development Best Practice

Software Development Best Practice#

Course Description#

This course offers a high-level understanding of software development for research. It is designed to be interactive and so will be delivered within a seminar style with live demonstrations and activities which are aimed at encouraging effective collaboration on code and improving the reproducibility of research. We allow plently of time for discussion and questions to support the conceptual understanding of software development processes.

This course comprises two two-hour sessions. The course is designed to be interactive and so will be delivered within a seminar style with live demonstrations and activities. We have allowed plenty of time for discussion and questions throughout - please simply shout out any questions/comments you have or raise your physical/virtual hand. We will also have a short comfort break approximately three quarters of the way through the session. We will also share the slides and there is a list of resources on the website for this course.

Course Objectives#

Develop a high-level understanding of software development for research.
Learn how to collaborate on code effectively.
Understand how to make code useful to others to improve the reproducibility of research.
Build the necessary foundations for intermediate level courses that will delve deeper into software development topics.

Pre-requisite Knowledge#

There is no pre-requisite knowledge and the workshop is designed to be appropriate for anyone interested in software development.

Installation Guide#

While not required for this course, we recommend attendees to use their own computer/laptop to take effective notes.

Self Study Material Link#

The self-study material for this course is available here.

Developers#

This workshop was developed by Dr Fliss Guest with the help of Dr Thomas Hawes and Mr Linus Tata.

License Info#

Instructional Material

The instructional material in this course is copyright © 2024 University of Exeter and is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Instructional material consists of material that is contained within the “individual_modules/software_development_best_practices” folders in this repository, with the exception of code snippets and example programs found in files within these folders. Such code snippets and example programs are considered software for the purposes of this licence.

Software

Except where otherwise noted, software provided in this repository is made available under the MIT licence (https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

The software in this repository is adapted from software that is covered by the following copyright and permission notice:

Copyright © 2024 Software Carpentry

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.